


Theology for Beginners

by MissVioletHunter



Series: Theology for Beginners [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Drama & Romance, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-01
Updated: 2015-03-29
Packaged: 2017-12-25 07:46:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 80,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/950536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissVioletHunter/pseuds/MissVioletHunter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During the events of The Avengers, a woman finds herself in the hands of an arrogant god that she can't seem to comprehend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Road You Didn't Take

**Author's Note:**

> AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story takes place during Avengers, but I had to twist the chronology and some of the facts for the story to make sense. If you look closely at the Avengers movie, there is obviously no time between one battle and the next for all the stuff that happens here. Let's just call it a slightly altered reality.
> 
> There's not a lot of Loki in Chapter 1 (sorry), but from Chapter 2 onwards he will be there, breaking havoc.

_THEOLOGY (definition from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary): the study of religious faith, practice, and experience; especially: the study of God and of God's relation to the world._

**May 15. Stuttgart.**

"What person can know for sure when his or her life is going to change? What wouldn't we give for the ability to manipulate our destiny, to go back to the moment of an apparent trivial choice in our lives and be able to choose the other option...?"

The woman's voice could be heard, loud and clear, by all the attendants in the meeting room. The international law firm Ulrich & Malcolm, in Stuttgart, owned a state of the art meeting room. To begin with, it was so big that the company always held the Christmas party there; if they wanted, they could have invited all the neighbours and they would still fit in comfortably. It had the acoustics of a concert hall, so no microphones were needed. Furthermore, it wasn't located on the top floor of the U&M building, like any other normal meeting room would be. Instead, it occupied a good part of the ground floor, and one of its sides was entirely composed of several huge french windows that opened towards the zen garden. Under Mr. Malcolm's orders, those windows were always open, so that anyone passing through the garden could hear and see everything in the room. The President of the firm was very proud of his _open door_ policy, literal and figurative. What very few people realized is that, by virtue of this policy, he knew everything that was said and done by anyone on the company. He pretended to accept suggestions and ideas from his team, but he never acted on them. Everybody wasted their time exchanging ideas that would at some point be stolen by one of the senior partners, but the junior associates never complained. In time, some of them would be partners and it would be their turn to have the upper hand in the game.

There were a dozen partners and some junior lawyers and clerks in this particular meeting. The woman delivering the speech was the newest partner at U&M, and she was playing the game with considerable skill. In an short period of time she had been promoted from the Boston office to the London one, and finally to the head office in Germany. Mergers and Acquisitions, which meant swimming in a pool of sharks, but she was good at smelling blood in the water. Right now she was suggesting that the firm took an aggressive position in a merger between two banks. It was a big account and a bold movement, but, if everything went according to plan, by the end of the year she would be one the star attorneys of the firm.

"...and that is why I'm asking my fellow partners to approve my proposal and allow me to assemble a team to set the merger in motion", she finished.

"What worries me is that the press is going to call 'hostile takeover' in any moment, and that would cast a bad light upon us", argued the man sitting at the head of the table.

"That is why I have asked our press department to develop a counter strike, Mr. Malcolm. They are already working on it, and I've sent the details to all the partners less than an hour ago. As soon as we publish it, we will be regarded as heroes by the whole financial world, and the takeover... sorry, the _merger_ will be a fact."

The President seemed happy with the answer. "You have excelled yourself this time, Miss Channing. Good work, we will submit this to a vote first thing tomorrow. Ladies and gentlemen, the meeting is adjourned."

The atmosphere around the table relaxed a bit, as the attendants started closing their laptops and leaving towards the elevator. The woman in the navy suit stayed in the room, reviewing her notes.

"Leah, I predict than in ten years you will be President, CEO, Supreme Empress or whatever other position you want to occupy in this company."

She looked at the young man who had been sitting to her right during the meeting and flashed a quick smile at him. "Not so fast, Mark. I have to get this operation right first."

"You're all work and no fun since they made you a partner. Let's go have a few drinks... for old times' sake."

"You would be more worried about work if your name wasn't Mark Ulrich Jr., and if you weren't the heir apparent of Ulrich & Malcolm", she sneered.

"At the risk of sounding like a spoiled brat, I must say I deserve everything I have achieved. The same as you." Mark tried to slide a tentative hand around Leah's waist, but she got out of reach with a swift movement.

"Let bygones be bygones, Mark. You know second parts are always a bore", she sighed. "Also, I'm going to the opera tonight, with the wife and the two daughters of a client. Someone in PR thought it would be funny to make me play babysitter for a day. So, if you'll excuse me, I have to finish planning the demise of a poor investment bank... before the fat lady sings."

"You love the thrill of the hunt, don't you, Leah?"

She lifted her gaze from the papers and looked him in the eye. "It takes a true predator to recognize another."

"Well, have fun plotting your evil schemes and watching _La Bohéme_ for the umpteenth time. If you change your mind, you know where to find me", he winked at her. "Oh, there seems to be a visitor waiting for you in the garden, and he's been there for a while", he observed before leaving the room.

She turned around to face the french windows, a bit perplexed. No one had informed her of any visitor, but there was indeed a man standing outside in the zen garden. Tall, dark-haired, in a black suit. A very expensive, custom tailored black suit, she thought. A good lawyer could smell money from a mile away, and the stranger reeked of it. Besides, he was quite attractive. No, not attractive... beautiful. Almost too beautiful for a man, his hands a bit too delicate, his pale skin a tad too smooth. She immediately went into her 'professional, efficient and attentive but not too friendly' mode.

"Is there anything I can do for you, sir?"

"Your powers of speech are truly extraordinary." His voice was soft, almost husky, and the corners of his mouth were curled in a little smile.

"Thank you. But you didn't have to wait outside until the end of the meeting. If you had made your presence known, I'm sure Mr. Ulrich or Mr. Malcolm would have interrupted it to receive you."

"Ah, but I do not wish to see any of them right now." A smirk this time, and a step towards her. "On the other hand, eavesdropping can be very entertaining. And instructive."

"Do you have an interest in corporate finance?" She returned the smile, tilting her head in a flirty way and wondering how hard it would be to steal a big client like this from one of their bosses.

"I am about to... how would you say it? Launch an aggressive takeover."

"I love those. They are the quickest way to penetrate a profitable market."

The man licked his lips and stared at Leah, making her feel exposed and uncomfortable, although her dress shirt was buttoned up to her neck. _"It takes a true predator to recognize another"_ , he said, mimicking the words she had used just a minute before.

Leah frowned, took a step backwards, and pretended to arrange the chairs around the table. "Let me get the receptionist and clear this up. There must have been a misunderstanding with your appointment." She picked up the phone from the other side of the table, but when she looked outside again the man had vanished. She went out to the garden, now deserted, and crossed the hall towards the main reception.

"Bertha! Bertha! Where did that man go?"

"What man, Leah, dear?" The receptionist, a matronly middle-aged woman with thick glasses that was holding a phone in each hand, looked at her, a bit confused.

"There was a client... a visitor, just outside the meeting room. The only other door to the garden is through this reception."

"It's past five o'clock, my dear. No client gets an appointment after four, and most of your colleagues are leaving already. Are you sure of what you saw?"

Without bothering to answer, she hurried back to the huge meeting room, gathered her papers and returned to her office. There, she poured herself a glass of scotch and drank it in one fluid motion. The prospect of a boring night at the opera was dreadful... for a moment she considered telling Public Relations to fuck off, cancelling the plans and calling Mark. At least she would have a drinking (and sleeping) companion, and would stop worrying about working too many hours... and seeing ghosts.

The ice cubes tinkled in the empty glass as she placed it on her desk and walked, this time slowly, towards the garden. There was definitely nobody there, only the stones, the plants, the wood bridge and the gravel, that the gardener raked carefully in undulating patterns and circles twice a day.

The gravel that showed no other footprints than her own.

"I'm overworked. I didn't sleep well yesterday. And ghosts don't exist", Leah said to nobody in particular, a bit louder than her usual calm tone. She even managed a weak smile, right before feeling the touch of an icy finger on her cheek and exhaling a small cloud of vapor.

The handful of clerks and interns that stayed late in the U&M office to do some extra hours were surprised by the sudden banging of a door, the hurried sound of a pair of high heels clicking on the wooden floor, and the sight of the usually composed partner Leah Channing practically running out of the building, with her coat dangling over one arm and her handbag and two portfolios on the other.

"These kids... Running, always running as if the Devil was right behind them", mused Bertha, the receptionist, shaking her head in disapproval. "They should be friends with him after all, being lawyers..."


	2. Gracious Living Fantasy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is basically a brief retelling of the Avengers Stuttgart scene. It's been probably done a thousand times, but I needed a point of entry for the story and I chose this one.

_Viva Musetta!_ _Cuor birichin!_  
 _Gloria ed onor, onor e gloria_ _  
__del quartier latin!_

 _Tutto splendor!_  
 _Di Francia è il più bell'uom!_  
 _Il bel Tambur Maggior_ _  
__Eccolo là! Che guarda, passa; va!_

The curtain fell, marking the intermission of _La Bohéme_. Leah clapped with fake enthusiasm for half a minute, and then followed Mrs. Astor and her two daughters to the foyer downstairs, where some kind of scientific conference was taking place. She needed to get her hands on a drink before the incessant chatter of Mrs. Astor drove her insane. The woman was trying to get her eldest girl an internship at U &M, and she had been singing her praises out on every chance she had.

"Anna will get her law degree next year. She's got the highest grades in her class, and it would be wonderful for her to learn from the best! Mr. Ulrich speaks so highly of you..."

The two girls, Anna and her younger sister Liesl, were clearly mortified by her mother's attitude, and Leah decided to cut the conversation short before they died of embarrassment.

"Anna, why don't you come to my office next week? Bring me a copy of your resumé and I'll see what I can do", she said, pitying the poor girl in advance. She looked eager and kind, too kind for the type of business she wanted to get into. "Let's just enjoy the evening and stop talking about business, shall we?"

Mrs. Astor ordered champagne. The waiter had just brought it when they heard something, like a muffled thump, from the other side of the foyer. The whole place fell into silence.

Then she saw him. Her ghost in a black suit. Walking towards the speaker with the elegance of a dancer and a strange looking staff in his hand, which he had just used to knock up a security guard. Some people stood up to get a better view of what was happening, and Leah's vision was blocked for a moment. She heard a cry, another thump, and a wheezing noise that chilled her blood. People started rushing towards the exit, joined by a disorganized crowd that came running from the upper floor.

In a few seconds, the rush turned into a stampede. The four women tried to make their way towards the door without being crushed. Mrs. Astor clung to her eldest daughter's arm, and Leah grabbed Liesl's hand, trying not to lose sight of the other two. _Fuck, if something happens to these people the big boss is going to crucify me,_ she thought, trying to maneuver among the hundreds of people, in different stages of panic, that ran across the hall. Halfway through the exit the space became scarce, and the way was blocked by an upturned desk. She looked back, trying to search for a side exit or an accessible window.

The stranger was still in the foyer, strolling calmly among the crowd, and Leah couldn't be sure if he had seen her or not. The light started to flicker around him with a golden glow, and in a moment his elegant suit had morphed into a full armor. He looked like something from another world, something glorious and terrifying. Some people had stopped running and stared at him, hypnotized, like deers in headlights.

With a considerable effort, Leah pushed her way through the doors of the opera house, with Liesl tugging at her hand. The teenager had lost a shoe and was starting to drag behind the moving mass of people, until she finally fell to the floor with a loud yelp.

"Stop, I sprained an ankle!"

"I don't care!" Leah grabbed the girl's arm and pulled her to her feet, with a hint of deliberate cruelty. A wave of panic was creeping up her back, and the only way to keep it under control was getting angry at this silly girl who chose the worst possible moment to stumble and fall. "Get back on your feet and run. Keep running or I swear I'll leave you here!"

By pure chance they found Mrs. Astor and Anna on their way out. They had almost reached the middle of the square when they realized there was nowhere else to run, or hide. Three other beings, identical to the armored man behind them, had appeared in each corner of the place, encircling the whole crowd. A police car was suddenly blasted by some sort of energy beam, and the sound of several police sirens filled the space.

The man in the horned helmet was ordering them to kneel. His voice echoed through the air, like powered by some kind of magical wave. Leah knelt in half a second; she was starting to feel dizzy and tired anyway, too tired to run or even stand. She lowered her head, trying to hide behind the other kneeling figures, and tried to get her mobile phone from her clutch, but it slid off her hand and she looked for it on the ground, blindly. She was distracted when the armored figure spoke again, and realized a second too late that the crowd had fallen silent and that several people were looking at her.

_Shit. Not a good moment to lose concentration._

"Are you too occupied to give me your unconditional attention, woman? Do you find the words of your God so tedious?" His voice was soft, almost silky, like he was gently scolding a disobedient child.

Leah's tongue was paralyzed with fear. Had he just called himself a God? She shook her head and muttered an apology, hoping that he would focus on someone else if she seemed harmless enough.

"Bring her to me", he said, to no one in particular. A big guy in a tuxedo and a middle aged man in a grey suit stood up, grabbed her arms and dragged her forward until she was standing in front of the horned figure. His imposing figure towered above her. He was impossibly tall, at least a head taller than everyone, not counting the horns. A hand slid under Leah's chin, forcing her to look in his eyes; there was no hint of softness in them.

"Did the proverbial cat get your tongue, junior partner Channing?"

So he had recognized her. Under the trepidation in her mind she felt angry. Angry at herself for her stupid lack of focus, at the two men that were holding her and didn't even try to look ashamed, at the self-proclaimed God for singling her out. She tried to swallow the knot in her throat, to get her voice back and her brain working.

"I apologize. I was... overwhelmed by your presence", she said in what she hoped was a respectful tone. If he believed himself divine, better start acting the part of a penitent.

"Liar. You were hiding from me and looking for a means of escape."

_That's it. I'm dead. 'Goodbye cruel world' and all that._

"Kill the bitch and leave the rest of us alone!" suddenly shouted a voice in the back of the crowd.

"What?" Leah's stomach revolted, and she started struggling, trying to turn around while a white-hot rage filled her.

The armored figure grinned, and his left hand circled her throat loosely, making her gasp. "Good. Someone is offering their God a sacrifice", he whispered.

Leah heard herself laughing, the desperate laugh of one who has nothing to lose. "There you have it, _humanity_ in its truest form! Maybe you're right and deep down we're still so primitive that we'll do anything to save our miserable lives, so weak that we would gladly give you complete power for fear of using it ourselves."

He didn't answer. His gaze wandered to the small golden cross around her neck, and he held it between his fingers for a moment.

"Can I ask for just one thing?" she said with a bitter smile.

"Speak."

"Make it fast. Don't let this herd of idiots enjoy my pain."

"Herd... Nice choice of words. They do look like sheep from here. But they are my worshippers now, and they have chosen you as my sacrifice."

"Nobody has chosen me. They would worship a wall of bricks if it had some kind of power over them. And you don't need a sacrifice, in any case."

"And why would that be?" he asked, arching an eyebrow and letting go of her neck.

_Keep him interested, keep him talking. Someone will come and help._

"In some ancient cultures criminals were sacrificed to appease the god they had offended. But, as far as I know, I am no more criminal than any of my fellow citizens, especially the _outstanding_ ones that were so keen on pushing me forward at the first chance they had", she spat with a venomous look at the two men that were still holding her. They immediately released her arms and fixed their eyes on the ground, trying not to attract any attention.

"Interesting theory. Continue."

She was thinking like crazy, forming sentences in her mind and discarding them, looking desperately for a way out. "Ancient Celts sometimes sent an emissary, chosen to communicate directly with the gods of the Otherworld. But that wouldn't make a lot of sense either, because you are already here, talking to me, so there would be no point in sending me somewhere else. If you kill me, you will only succeed in proving that I am mortal, and that's something we already know."

He looked mildly amused now. "Beautifully put, but then why exactly should I spare you?"

_Put those oratory lessons to work, girl. Talk him out of this. Save your ass._

On a sudden burst of inspiration she stood on her tiptoes to whisper in his ear.

"Because all these people don't give a damn about you. All they want is to find a scapegoat and get out of your reach. Because if you were powerless and weak like them they would destroy you in seconds, that is how a mob thinks. Because maybe the only real worshipping you will get, _my God_ , is the one that comes from the person who is about to die."

The man in the golden armor smiled. "That is an unusual prayer. A bit lacking in humility, but your rhetoric is quite compelling... again."

"Compelling enough to keep me breathing?"

"Oh, better than that." He held her chin again, running a finger along her cheek. His touch was icy cold, paralyzing.

_Crap, now I may have gone too far._

"We don't kneel to men like you." A new voice rose from behind her, a voice that sounded old and tired but loud enough to be heard in the silence that dominated the place. The self-proclaimed God released Leah from his grasp; her knees gave way and she sunk to the floor, exhausted and relieved at the same time. Her heart was pounding so fast that she didn't even hear what the elderly man was saying. An energy beam flew over the crowd's head, and she looked up just in time to see a blue figure diving in from above and landing between the crowd and their attacker. A strange aircraft hovered over the square with a deafening noise, and everybody was running, this time in all directions, away from the fight and the danger.

A mayhem of screams and panic erupted again. Ambulances and police cars started to appear from the adjacent streets, and Leah hurried, stumbling, towards a group of paramedics.

The last thing she saw before being taken inside the ambulance was the dark-haired God, apparently defeated, surrounded by a group of armed guards. There was no malice or rage in his expression, nothing but serenity.

Nothing that could explain the chills that went down her spine during the brief moment his blue-green eyes focused on hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still very new to fanfiction. Critique and feedback are always welcome.


	3. Perpetual Anticipation

**May 17. Stuttgart.**

It was seven in the morning when Leah arrived to her office. The usually busy city center was almost deserted, partly due to the ungodly hour, and partly because the shock of two nights before was still fresh. Everybody spoke in desolated whispers and gazed over their shoulders a bit more than usual. The newspapers and television stations broadcasted their version of the events, all of them different. Terrorist attack, collective hallucination, a publicity stunt gone wrong. One tabloid had even gone as far as to suggest an absurd theory involving aliens.

She had spent all the previous day between the hospital and the police station, making statements and enduring medical tests. They had even tried to send her to a therapist, to no avail because she hated shrinks. The police asked a lot of questions and explained very little, they seemed to be as confused as everyone else. Leah had repeated the details of that night to a Landespolizei detective, a couple of federal officers and a strange looking guy, an American, supposedly an Interpol investigator. For some reason, she never mentioned her first encounter with the mysterious man at the Japanese garden.

She sat in front of her laptop and tried to get a bit of work done, without much success. All meetings for the week had been cancelled and the office was practically dead. Her secretary had called in sick. An anxiety crisis, like half of the Stuttgart population.

_Note to self: if my secretary is not here tomorrow, fire her ass._

It was almost eight when she met Bertha, the receptionist, in front of the coffee machine. As much as Leah despised most of her coworkers, the maternal looking woman with a fixed smile on her face was the closest thing she had to a friend.

"Leah, honey, the police is here to see you."

"What, again? They have a thousand witnesses to question, one would think they would have the decency to stop pestering me."

"I know, dear, but they want you to sign some papers. I put them in the waiting room so that they wouldn't bother you in your office."

"Bertha, have you considered becoming my secretary? With a pay raise, of course."

The woman smiled, pushing her glasses up her nose. "You've fired three secretaries in the last six months. I care about you, dear, but I'm too close to retirement and I don't want a high risk job right now. It's not worth the money."

"Fair enough. I guess I deserve it."

"If you treated the rest of your colleagues half as well as you treat me..."

"I know, I know. But some people don't respond well to kindness. They expect me to be bossy, I give them bossy. It works for me", she finished, walking into the waiting room.

One of the two police officers was the same one she had been talking to the day before. "Miss Channing. I'm afraid we need you to sign another copy of your statement", he said, handing her a pen and a sheet of paper.

"I've signed so many things that I'm starting to feel like a rock star", she sighed. "How is the investigation going? Anything new? All I got yesterday from your Interpol friend was that all information was classified."

The man took off his sunglasses. "He was not from the Interpol. He belongs to a secret espionage agency called SHIELD. Everything related to them is classified."

"You shouldn't be telling me that, officer... I could call the press and give them an exclusive", she joked.

_Funny. I could have sworn his eyes were not blue yesterday._

Before she could react, the other policeman held her by the arms, covering her mouth with his hand. She felt a sharp object pressed to her neck, and then everything vanished.

* * *

Head pounding. Dry mouth. Cold, clammy sweat. Leah opened her eyes, let out a small grunt, and closed them again. She was in a brightly lit room, lying on what felt like a soft and fluffy couch. Lifting a hand to her eyes to shield them from the light, she focused on the tall figure in front of her.

It was _him_ , of course. Who else. Holding a power stance in front of a fireplace, and wearing normal clothes again. His coat and jacket hung neatly on the back of a chair, and he seemed to be studying her.

"Good morning", she muttered. There was no need to be rude, especially to someone who had proved to be so dangerous. "They say third time's the charm, but every time I see you I feel a lot worse than the previous one". The light wasn't hurting her eyes anymore, but the pulsing sensation in her head refused to go away.

"Good afternoon. You have been asleep for several hours."

"It's the usual reaction when someone drugs you." She got up using the back of the coach for support, and did a quick check of her belongings. Her bag was on the floor next to her, and her clothes were apparently in order.

_At least I didn't wake up chained to a wall in a dark basement. Yet._

"You put on quite a show two days ago... The last time I saw you, you were getting arrested."

He walked towards her, slowly, and stopped a few feet away. "There is no prison in your world that can hold me. Not for long."

Leah looked around her, unsettled. The room was extravagantly large, with impossibly tall ceilings and huge windows. All she could see from them was miles of mountain landscape, rocky and barren except for a few pine trees.

"I don't recognize that view. I've a feeling we're not in Stuttgart anymore."

"That is what your people call the Catskill Mountains, near the city of New York."

"You brought me to the other side of the world?"

"Unless you have developed a sudden interest in geography, you should ask the questions you really want to ask." He took another step towards her, so close now that she had to tilt her head to look at him.

"All right. Who are you and what is going on here?"

"One thing at a time... Leah." He whispered her name like a cool breeze. "You already know who I am, from your visit to the police station."

"The police told me that you are a megalomaniac with a Norse God complex and some kind of technology that makes it look like you have weird powers. Not my words, I'm just quoting."

"You are far too intelligent to believe that, unless I have made a grave mistake in judging your character", he smirked. "There is no complex. I am your God and the future ruler of your Earth... as soon as I have taken care of a few obstructions in my path."

"So you want me to believe you're really..."

"Loki. Of Asgard." He took her hand and kissed it gently. Cold lips, warm breath. Against her will, she shivered to the touch.

_So he's a God, of the hand-kissing type. Fucking perfect._

"Now that we're on the question of names... Are there any special issues regarding yours?" she asked, trying to regain her coolness.

He looked puzzled for a second.

"I mean, what shall I call you? 'My God' is a rather fastidious title. And 'My Lord' sounds dreadfully Victorian."

"You can call me Loki, for now."

"Any prohibition of taking your name in vain?"

"Not that I know of."

"Will I spontaneously combust or be fulminated by lightning if I say it?"

"Do you always talk so much, woman?"

"If I promise to stop talking, will you let me go?"

"No."

"What if I talk incessantly until I give you a headache?"

"I will probably close your mouth myself. Permanently."

Leah nodded and retreated back to the couch. Her eyes wandered to the other side of the room, to the tall table that served as a bar.

_God, I need a drink. Badly. I may need a whole bottle right now to soak up all this._

Loki saw her looking at the bar and nodded his approval. Trying to keep as far away from him as possible, Leah walked over to the table. Too late for a Bloody Mary, and definitely too early for a vodka martini. She decided for a Southern Comfort with a bit of cranberry juice, and tried to keep her hands from shaking while she poured the drink. The first sip burned her throat. After the second she felt confident enough to look at her kidnapper.

"I'm guessing you're not going to kill me, you could have done that without all this waffle."

"I did not bring you here to be killed."

"Then what am I doing here?"

"Ah, finally. I thought you were going to avoid the question forever."

"I'm not avoiding anything." She was. She dreaded the answer but, on the other hand, wasn't brave enough to deal with the uncertainty. "Why am I here?"

"To share my bed."

"Tonight?"

"Every night."

_This can't be happening. I'm trapped in someone else's morbid fantasy._

Leah backed instinctively against the table, trying very hard not to panic. His eyes never strayed from her, watching her reactions, and she wondered if he could read minds. She wondered because hers was racing, desperately searching for a way out.

"With all due respect... I don't understand."

"I will do all the explaining you need."

"I've been here, unconscious, for several hours. You could have done all you wanted with me, but instead you're practically asking. Politely."

"Would you have preferred it the other way round?"

"I'm just trying to figure out your game."

"My game, as you call it, is quite simple. Yes, I could have ravished you on that couch anytime I wanted, ruined you in your sleep. I could have dragged you to the bed, kicking and screaming, covered in chains. But I don't take pleasure in possessing a mindless body, and in your case I have decided to be patient. You can thank me for that later."

"You could have asked for a volunteer in Stuttgart. Some blonde Teutonic walkyrie with a kink for Norse guys in armors and horns."

"The doe doesn't choose to be hunted. It is the hunter's choice to go after it."

"I'm not quite sure what you mean by that, but that reference to hunting is doing nothing for my peace of mind." Trying to keep her back to the wall, she walked towards the couch again, because her knees where shaking. "You're saying that you have chosen me, for some reason."

Loki sat down beside her. He looked even taller from up close. "Two days ago, I slipped into the garden of a building, and I heard you talking to your colleagues. You spoke of power, wealth, and the prospects of battle. Of how the lives of hundreds of people would change because of your plans."

"I spoke of law, money, and the dirty maneuvers of a corporate merger. Those things are not supposed to turn people on."

"Let's just say I was... intrigued. But I had other matters to attend, and I was not expecting to meet you again after our brief conversation. Imagine my pleasant surprise when I saw you later that night, kneeling in front of me." He finished the sentence with a small head inclination and held out a hand to Leah, but she didn't move. "You should feel honored to be chosen."

"Honored? You're telling me that my presence here is due to a monumental amount of rotten luck. That if I hadn't gone to the opera that night I would be in my flat now, having dinner by myself and catching up on my reading. I can't feel honored just because of a fucked up cosmic coincidence."

"What you call coincidence is what I call fate, Leah. A God's answer to you, if you prefer." His extended hand travelled to her neck, to the chain that held the small golden cross. "Has this other God ever given you an answer?"

"I've never bothered him with questions."

"Then why do you wear this symbol?"

"I inherited it from my Italian grandmother, along with my eyes and my tendency to throw tantrums. It doesn't mean anything." She was starting to feel helpless, torn in two between her rational brain, the one that told her that he was no more than a man... no more than a wanted criminal, and the other part of her mind, the one that was a bit more than curious about this improbable deity. The same corner of her conscience that was trying very hard to ignore the light touch of his fingers over the hollow of her throat.

_Screw this, I'm a grown woman. I'm too old to even think of swooning over an tight fitting suit and a perfect face._

The rational mind took the lead for a moment, and she flinched back. "Look, I didn't ask to be brought here. I don't want to be here. You just admitted that it could have been anyone else instead of me, so I'm going to ask you something. Is there any possibility, little as it may be, that you let me go? Any way out for me... at all? Because, if it exists, I want it; just name your terms. I won't tell anyone about this, I'll just go home and keep my mouth shut while you find someone else to warm your sheets."

"You are really used to relying on your eloquence." Loki's eyes gleamed. "I will not discuss my motives, with you or with anyone else. But there may be a way. And if you take it... I will have to content myself with a less interesting companion."

"Yes, of course I'll take it! There has to be some crazy woman somewhere who gets off on screwing a madman."

"A God."

"Whatever. Show me the exit?"

Loki walked to the TV screen mounted on the wall and pulled a DVD from a plastic case. He inserted it in the DVD player: the screen showed the news coverage of the Stuttgart attack, probably filmed from a nearby building.

"This may require a bit of an effort on your part. I will stop the recording on a random instant, and _you_ will choose your successor."

"From the women in the square?"

"Exactly."

She hid her face between her hands for a few seconds. _I'm going to throw someone else to the wolves. I'm going to become the most despicable person on the planet and burn in Hell. Supposing there is one._ "Do it."

The camera panned slowly across the kneeling multitude, showing row after row of anguished faces. Loki pressed a button on the remote and the image froze... on two blonde girls who knelt side by side, holding hands.

_Anna and Liesl. Bastard. 'Random instant', my ass.  
_

"Keep going, I'll pick someone else", she muttered, trying to sound inconsequential.

"One of those two." His voice was as calm as always. Leah turned to face him, livid.

"I know those girls. Let me choose someone else."

"No."

"Someone over twenty-one, for fuck's sake!"

"Time is up. Make your choice or it will be you. Kicking and screaming, if there is no other way."

"Give me a real choice, then! This is blackmail. It's not..."

"If you are going to say _fair_ , do not bother. You trade in unfairness every day."

"Not with other people's lives!" Leah felt a wave or outrage in her chest and clenched her fists to her sides. "You never intended to let me go; this was just some kind of sick game."

Loki grabbed her by the shoulders, digging his fingers into her flesh, and bared his teeth in a cruel smile. "I was merely testing the elasticity of your principles. Weren't you so sure that you wanted a way out? Well, I offered you one: the chance to walk free, and the only thing you had to do was choose your replacement. And you almost did it... you were ready to buy your freedom at the cost of someone else's. Did you really think me so weak, so... compassionate, that I would give you an easy escape and let you return to your life with your pretty little conscience unscathed? That you could bat your lashes and pout, and I would react like one of the stupid mortal men you are used to manipulate? What do you take me for?"

"I wouldn't _take_ you for anything in the world."

"That remains to be seen. You seem to have forgotten the way you looked at me when we first met."

"That was strictly business. You were the opportunity for a new account, nothing more."

"Protest all you like. I saw your desire. You wanted me", he hissed.

There was no possible answer to that. She had really felt attracted to him at first sight; she had thought him magnificent in his gold attire; and now there was this small, dark corner in her mind that felt drawn to this man. Or God. Whatever. In any case, she knew she was out of options. Leah broke free from his arms and rushed to the bar again, this time for more Southern Comfort and less cranberry juice, swallowed instead of sipped. She had just finished pouring her third glass when Loki grabbed her waist from behind, making her look at him.

"Do you find me so repulsive that you are trying to drink yourself into oblivion?" For a brief instant, he looked more concerned than annoyed.

_What's the worst that can happen? Bad sex? I'm drinking on an empty stomach, with a bit of luck I won't be able to remember a thing..._

"I can't reach oblivion in two minutes. Right now I'd just settle for stupidity, and I'm half a glass away from it."

"You wanted an explanation and I gave you one. You wanted an opportunity of escape, and I granted it to you. I have been extremely patient with you until now, lovely Leah", he whispered, close to her ear. "Two more minutes of waiting may be all you will get."

She chuckled. "I've been called many things in my life... but never _lovely_."

"It suits you." He brushed a strand of hair from her face. "Under the anger, the bitterness and the endless array of words, you are lovely."

Leah closed her eyes, clutching her drink so tightly that it almost spilled. Her mind was too clouded to keep the verbal banter going, and not clouded enough to pretend this wasn't happening, not yet. Loki's fingers were now brushing the side of her neck, lazily, without haste, and she didn't flinch of move away. After all... he was right, wasn't he? She wasn't exactly a good person and she probably deserved something like this. And if he was right, if all she had to do was yield to his green eyes and his caressing voice, if she could just stop thinking for just one second...

_You gambled and you lost. To hell with everything, close your eyes and think of England._

She took one last sip, put the unfinished drink on the mantelpiece with a loud clink, and placed the palm of her hand in Loki's chest. "Let's get this over with."

"I confess I was expecting a bit more enthusiasm."

"That would require several more drinks, and maybe a..." She was suddenly pushed against the wall before she could finish the sentence. Loki's hand grasped the back of her neck, and his lips crashed roughly against hers.

The tall cocktail glass fell from the mantelpiece, spilling its red contents all over the carpet.


	4. All Things Bright and Beautiful

It's generally considered good luck to spill wine from a glass. Unfortunately, the collective imaginarium doesn't say anything about the spilling of cocktails. They're just random events that usually happen at parties, and no one pays attention to them.

No one was paying attention to the drink that had just met its untimely fate on the carpet. Leah was too busy trying to breathe, trapped between the wall and the hungry lips of a god. There was no finesse in his kisses at first, no memory of the quiet and soothing tone he had used for most of their conversation. Loki was biting his way into her mouth, teeth grazing her lips, tongue clashing against tongue. Tasting her, drowning her in sensation.

Leah gasped for air when he finally backed up a little, and clung to his shoulders for support. It was like embracing a marble statue, his lean muscles tensing beneath the fabric of the shirt. Before he could claim her mouth again she brushed her fingers against his lips, feeling his laboured breath on her skin. He smiled briefly and planted a soft kiss on her fingertips.

_Oh, please, no. Fuck the brains out of me, I can stand that. But don't be tender, don't be sweet._

She responded grabbing a fistful of his hair and attacking his mouth greedily. His hand was moving down her blouse, undoing the buttons with inhuman speed before discarding the garment on the floor, and she let out a feeble moan when he cupped her breast, wandering briefly under the bra before letting his fingers run over the skin of her stomach. Cold, smooth fingers that sent goosebumps everywhere, almost waking her from the alcoholic breeze she had plunged into.

Holding onto his neck, she started curling a leg around his hip, pulling him closer. He placed a hand under her thigh and, to her surprise, lifted her up slowly, with just one arm, without even trying to seek support on the wall behind her.

_That's not normal, that's not... human. How strong is he anyway?_

Loki laughed softly at the sight of her amazed expression. "Forget all the men that came before me. Erase them from your mind. After tonight you will want only me... you will need only me", he whispered hoarsely, nipping at the tender skin below her ear.

Leah pressed her lips together to refrain from moaning when he ground against her, pinning her against the wall, letting her feel the hardness that stretched the front of his trousers. She dug her nails into his back, and almost without realizing she found herself dragged to another room, a large bedroom. The blinds were almost closed and all she could see was the bed where he shoved her, with little ceremony, making short work of her skirt and stockings.

At least he wasn't tearing her clothes apart.

Leah reached down to palm his crotch and he pushed his hips into her hand and groaned, breathing heavily. She let her hand explore his length, carefully, still over the fabric. That earned her a trail of wet kisses down her breasts while Loki tugged at her bra and slid if off her shoulders. Lips became teeth and kisses became bites, grazing roughly over her nipples, making her squirm and whimper under him.

_Don't let him get into your head. It may be wrong but it feels amazing, and that's all there is to it._

That was all there was to it until Loki slid a hand between her legs, letting his fingers wander under her knickers, and Leah sensed her self control abandoning her. She was used to being in charge in bed, teasing and talking dirty and leaving her partners breathless. But his hands, God, his hands were sending white-hot coils towards her center, and when he slid two fingers into her, without warning, she grasped the sheets until her knuckles ached. He was reducing her to a sex-starved teenager using only his hands. With her eyes firmly closed, she focused on sending her mind to a different place. To the awkwardness of her first boyfriend and his klutzy lovemaking, to the frustrating drunken tryst she'd had once in the alley behind a pub. Anything to distract her from the way her body was responding to him.

She felt Loki pull her underwear down her legs, all the while stroking her thighs with maddening skill. She was now completely naked, and the self-proclaimed God still completely clothed. Not fair. Not fair at all, so she rolled over to straddle him and undid his tie with a short and precise movement (an ability acquired after numerous sessions of office sex with her colleague Mark), helping him get rid of his shirt. The marble statue analogy was spot on, she thought, his hard chest smooth and pale under her hands. She ran a single fingernail down his chest, tracing a slow path across his stomach and stopping just below the waist.

Loki let out a sharp breath and grabbed her hand. "Do that again." She complied, this time pressing her polished nails against his skin, dragging the tips down with a calculated amount of pressure that would have made any other man hiss in pain, but his only response was a husky laugh. Encouraged by this reaction, Leah fumbled with his belt, whipped down his trousers and briefs in one go, and freed his hardened length. Pulsing, throbbing under her touch.

_Jesus fucking Christ. At least now I know the horns are not meant to compensate for anything._

He seized her brief moment of hesitation and gripped her waist tightly, pushing her on her back and trapping her between the mattress and his hard, cool body. Loki's fingers sought her entrance again, caressing her wet folds with growing urgency, until he wrapped his hands around her hips and entered her with a single, powerful thrust. The sudden invasion made Leah throw her head back on the pillow, arching her back and letting out a feeble cry. She only had a couple of seconds to adjust before the god started building a rhythm, burying himself deeper and deeper while he bit and sucked at her neck, drawing faint bruises on the tender skin of her throat. Leah felt the tension build in her like a heat wave, growing with each stroke.

_Damn, if he keeps licking my neck like that I'm going to start screaming my allegiance to him. In several languages._

Her body ached in need of release, but she refused to let go. She clenched her fists, fingernails digging into her palms, hoping that the sharp pain would distract her. It was just a silly little act of rebellion, a stubborn denial of the pleasure that threatened to invade her body. A selfish way of saying 'I'm not having fun and you can't make me'. She knew Loki wasn't going to last long. He was thrusting faster and harder now, one hand on her hip and the other teasing her breasts, his hot breath close to her cheek between one hungry kiss and the next.

And then it was showtime. She grabbed him tightly and lifted her hips up to meet his, grinding, pushing. Putting on a show of wanton pants and moans to replace what she wasn't allowing herself to feel. Eyes closed, mind on the game. When she felt Loki's movements become erratic she clenched her muscles a few times around him, reading the signs of his imminent climax, clawing furiously at his shoulders until he came with a low growl and collapsed over her.

_I may deserve an eternity of bad sex for faking... but I refuse to dance to his tune._

In the darkness without words that followed his release, Loki planted a kiss on Leah's shoulder, and she finally gathered the courage to open her eyes.

"Lovely Leah", he whispered, stretching his body with feline grace and moving just a couple of inches away from her. One of his hands remained on her stomach, tracing lazy circles and lines on her skin. It tickled and she giggled, squirming a bit against him. Drowsy and drained from the sex and the alcohol, she nestled her head on the crook of Loki's neck and drifted off to sleep.

* * *

**May 18. The Catskills.**

When Leah woke up in the morning she was alone in bed, with a mild hangover for her only company. She checked her watch, the only piece of her outfit that was still in place, and realized she hadn't eaten anything in more than twenty four hours.

After a quick shower she did a damage assessment session in front of the mirror: two bite marks on the neck, a small bruise on the left hip and a bit of soreness down south. She stared at her reflection for a moment. The dark circles under her eyes were a not so nice extra, courtesy of the jet lag and whichever drug they had used on her the day before.

 _Well, I've done worse._ _In all honesty, I've had much worse drunk sex. I've had much worse sex, period._ _And I can't afford to think of it right now. First, breakfast, and then I'll look for the back door to this place._

Still wrapped in a towel, she found her way to the cathedral-sized kitchen (bigger than her flat in Stuttgart) and was relieved to see that the refrigerator was fully stocked. She had wondered if Asgardian gods needed to eat, and if Loki had taken her human needs into account.

After two cups of tea and a generous serving of eggs and toast, she was feeling almost optimist. The next thing she did was a treasure hunt for her clothes, scattered between the living room and the bedroom. They were undamaged but terribly wrinkly and stained with sweat, so she remained in the towel while she fished her shoes from under a brocade ottoman.

The house was definitely a fortress in the middle of nowhere. Probably borrowed or taken by force from someone... Someone with a lot of money, many reasons to hide away from civilization and a good amount of awful taste, evidenced by the white wall-to-wall carpet on the floor of several rooms, the horrendous fireplace that occupied an entire wall of the living room, the bubblegum pink curtains, the dubious pieces of "art" that covered every available surface, and the style of the clothes she found in the walk-in closet.

There had been a woman living there before, that was clear, and every single drawer and rack was full of expensive clothes. Unfortunately, they looked like the dream of a vaudeville gangster's girlfriend: everything was pink, leopard patterned or covered in sequins. All the shoes, in matching colors, were drag queen high and two sizes bigger than her feet. But many of the clothes looked new, and at least some of them seemed to be her size; in the bottom drawers she saw a few wearable things, and finally decided for the simplest black dress she could find.

_I'm sure this was what she wore to the mobsters' funerals. Whoever "she" was, the poor thing had the fashion taste of a color blind clown._

The look for an escape route proved to be useless: the only entrance, a security door, was firmly locked from the outside. It was apparently made of steel and as thick as a safe door, so there was no point in trying anyway. The windows only opened a fraction of an inch, and the double glass looked bulletproof. In a sudden Scarlett O'Hara moment she threw a big marble ashtray against one of the windows, without even chipping it. The whole place was a very expensive and flashy version of a panic room. A panic castle. It was impossible to escape or even ask for help, there was no sign of a telephone anywhere, and her own mobile phone was completely dead.

The exploration of the whole house took her a couple of hours, and after that she found herself back in the living room. One of its walls was covered in book shelves, and most of the books seemed to be there just for decoration purposes, but there were a few readable ones. She found an old and battered volume of _The Count of Monte Cristo_ and started reading. After five minutes, Leah realized she had been going over the same line over and over and she threw the book to the floor, frustrated.

_He will get bored of me in a week! I only have to stay alive and sane, and until then... Here's to the girls who play smart._

With this small hope in mind, she returned to the kitchen and started cooking. It was an unlikely hobby that she didn't usually have time to practise, but she was itching for something to do. Something that could keep her from thinking, from analyzing the situation, from admitting to herself that she was in the hands of a real deity with little patience and less boundaries.

After a few hours of frantic cooking activity two quiches, one batch of lasagna and several ramekins of chocolate mousse were neatly displayed on the counter, and Leah stood in the middle of the kitchen with a glass of wine in her hand. Somber thoughts had slowly crept back into her mind, and she found herself looking at the door and wondering what would be worse, having Loki come back soon or being alone for days in that wretched house.

"I see you have kept yourself busy." Loki's sudden arrival startled Leah, and she almost dropped the glass.

"If you're going to appear out of the blue like that, please give me some clue first. You almost gave me a heart attack."

He was wearing a black and green leather outfit that would have looked ridiculous on anyone else, but it suited him somehow. He took the glass from Leah's hand and tasted the wine. "I was observing you."

"You were studying me. I am not a book, or a blueprint", she said, frowning.

"No, you are proving to be much more interesting than that so far." He handed her the glass back, held her chin and gave her a small peck on the lips. "Where does this culinary interest come from?"

"I've always liked cooking. When I was in high school I actually considered becoming a chef... before getting a scholarship for Columbia." She gave a nostalgic look at the _quiche lorraine_ for a moment. "It feels like a million years ago. Anyway, I don't even know if you eat."

"I may not be human, but our races are... compatible enough for me to eat human food."

"Yes, I kind of figured out the compatibility part yesterday night."

"Always a witty remark on those lips." He leaned over her for another kiss. "I like that on you, but be careful not to go too far with the sarcasm."

"My sarcasm and I are only going from here to the dining room table", she said, turning towards the counter and putting the dishes on a tray.

Loki let out a small smirk and held the door for her, tilting his head in a mockery of a bow. "After you."


	5. The Night is the Best Time of the Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: threats of physical violence, a bit of blood drawing.

Dinner started in a more or less civilized way. Loki found no fault with the food, and they ate in an uncomfortable silence for a few minutes, until Leah's patience reached its limit. The sun had just set, and the proximity of the night made her nervous. Besides, after a very solitary day she needed conversation, even if it was with him.

"I suppose I should be asking you about your day, but, considering that you're trying to take over the world, I'm not sure I want to know."

"If everything goes according to my designs, I will tell you... at some point."

"If everything doesn't go the way you're planning it, I will end up in prison for accessory to world invasion in the first degree. What will happen if you succeed is a mystery to me... unless you want me to hold a position in your new government", she said, finally looking up from her plate.

"There are several positions I would like you very much to hold... but not exactly in the government", he replied, licking his lips and looking intently at her.

_Dirty innuendo? This is definitely a step forward._

"Remember to take my qualifications into account. I'm a lawyer, not an Olympic gymnast", she whispered, half smiling.

"If I had any intentions to harm you, I would have done so already."

"That's easy for you to say, you're the invulnerable one."

"Are you still afraid of me?"

Leah let out a surprised laugh. " _Afraid_ is a gross understatement. I've been in a state of on-and-off terror for the last three days."

"And yet you have not shed a single tear since I brought you here. I thought your kind, especially women, was quite adept at crying."

"I haven't cried since two thousand and eight. That doesn't mean I don't feel scared, just that I choose not to show it. I'm sparing you the embarrassment and myself the humiliation of drowning in a pool of tears every time I remember that I'm a continent away from home, in the middle of a forest, held against my will by someone who claims, with a great deal of plausibility, to be an alien god from another dimensional plane."

Now it was Loki's turn to look surprised. "I commend your ability to keep a cold mind."

_Not as cold as I would like, unfortunately. And I hope you never realize that._

"Look, I'm not used to the damsel in distress thing. That sarcasm that you appreciate so much is my defense mechanism when I'm scared, and I'm using it a lot lately because of you. It's all right, it will pass. But sometimes it's really hard to pretend this situation is normal... Do you want a bit of chocolate mousse?"

"I appreciate your sincerity above all things. And the mousse looks delicious."

Leah got up and placed one of the ramekins in front of him. Before she could return to her seat Loki grabbed her hand and turned it around, placing a small, wet kiss on the pulse point inside her wrist. She automatically tensed to his touch, but he didn't let go of her hand.

"These hands are destined to better activities than cooking, even if it is in my honor."

"Thank you. You're not exactly unskilled in the manual abilities department, if my memory doesn't fail me."

"You have yet to experience the full extent of my abilities. Yesterday night our moments together were quite... hasty, but tonight I intend to keep you awake for several hours." Another kiss, this time on her palm.

"Is that a promise or a threat?"

_When this thing ends I'm going to send an article to Vogue about the best way to flirt with a god. I'll probably get an award for it.  
_

Loki laughed as he ran his thumb over her palm. "You look like a filly about to bolt. As long as you refrain from doing anything stupid, you are safe with me, Leah. I wish I could make you understand that."

"I'd really appreciate it if you stopped comparing me to frightened animals."

"And I do not like seeing you so unsettled."

"Unsettled? Of course I am freaking unsettled. Because, in all my life, I've never met a man I couldn't understand, until you. Because you make me feel small, threatened and powerless, and I hate that." She recovered her hand and paced nervously across the room before turning to face him again. "And the thing I still don't understand is why. Why me, of all the women in the planet? I mean, I'm not exactly homely, but my face won't launch a thousand ships. And I'm thirty-three years old. I _look_ thirty-three years old... Well, maybe a couple less, but that's not the point."

_The point is that I want you more with every passing hour, in spite of myself._

Loki took a sip of his wine and reclined in his chair. "Your age is irrelevant to me, and I am sure those thousand ships you speak of did not really sail because of a woman's face. Come back here, dinner is not over."

She walked back to the table and sat down, dragging her chair closer to his. "You always look at me like a cat at a mousehole. I know that look, because I'm used to being the cat, and I detest it."

"Who is making animal analogies now?" he sneered. "Yesterday I thought you talked too much. I am starting to ponder if the real problem is that you think too much. But I am interested in hearing more about your life."

"If you wanted a quiet woman you should have kidnapped a librarian... Ask away."

"That man who was with you at your office. Is he your lover?" There was the tiniest amount of jealousy in his voice. Just a bit, but it sounded quite scary, and Leah was relieved to be able to tell the absolute truth about the affair.

"Mark? No, not anymore. We were together for a while, until a vacant opened for a partner. He is the son of one of the firm's founders and I didn't want to be labeled as the boss' girlfriend, so I left him. For the last six months all our relationship has been strictly professional."

"He seemed very interested in you."

"Well, he's been trying to get back between my legs lately."

"I cannot say that I blame him. So you abandoned him, just like that."

"There was never a huge amount of feelings involved", she said, almost apologetically. "If it's any consolation, now that I've disappeared he must have taken over the work that I spent several months planning. The little shit."

Loki leant forward on the table, lacing his fingers together. "You mentioned a place called Columbia. Tell me more about it."

" _In lumine tuo videbimus lumen_. That's my university. Ivy League, which probably won't mean anything to you but it translates to 'an awfully hard place to get into'. I managed to get a scholarship thanks to a combination of good grades and good luck... but I'm going through the story backwards." She finished the last spoonful of her chocolate mousse and dropped the spoon on the table with a sigh. "If we had a violinist here, now would be the perfect moment to make him play a very sad melody, full of angst and slightly out of tune: I grew up in a shitty town called Newark, not very far from here, with a careless mother that lived on public benefits and a consecutive series of losers that she called her boyfriends."

"What happened to your father?"

"He wasn't around anymore when I was born. Fortunately for me, I managed to get through my childhood with a minimum of psychological traumas, and by the time I reached high school my teachers were so concerned about my sad situation at home that they wrote me the most glowing recommendation letters. Growing up in a toxic environment, overcoming adversity, and so on. I left home for Columbia at the usual age of eighteen, busted my ass through college and Law School working several jobs in addition to class, and never returned to Newark. My mother died during my second year of college, so there was nothing left for me there anyway."

Loki frowned. "What did your mother die of?"

"A destroyed liver." She looked at her empty wine glass and slid her fingers over the polished surface, frowning and staring at the object with contempt. "I don't want to talk about that, anyway", she said, pushing her chair back from the table and heading for the bar with quick steps. Not quick enough, though. Loki darted towards her with inhuman speed, and his cool fingers wrapped around her arm before she could reach her destination.

"Come here. You are not getting drunk tonight."

"But I _really_ like you when I'm drunk", she said, pouting.

"That puerile insolence is very unbecoming of you. I suggest that you abandon that attitude."

"One cocktail. To get in the mood."

"No." He gripped her arm tighter, drawing her close to him.

"Fine. Let me take the dishes to the kitchen."

_And finish the wine bottle while I'm there, at least. It's not strong but it will have to do._

"I know you are capable of coming up with a hundred excuses to get away from me. And I will stop you a hundred times. The dishes can wait, everything else can wait. I want you now."

The kiss was slow, almost unbearably so. Loki caught her bottom lip between his teeth, nibbling delicately. He tasted like Bordeaux wine and dark chocolate, and his lips lingered over hers for a while, sending a sweet warmth down her limbs. She placed a hand on his chest, just like she had done the night before, but this time his heartbeat was slower and his movements more restrained.

Loki let his hand creep up her back, reaching the one point at the nape of her neck that he knew would make her shiver. And shiver she did, trying to react as little as possible but still knowing that it would be useless. There was no Dutch courage in her this time, nothing to numb the dreadful feeling of want.

_Motherfucker. If the President of Earth was a woman and he touched her like this, he'd be crowned king of the world in ten minutes._

Leah lowered a hand to his crotch, looking for a quick, hurried fuck, but he guided her hand back to his chest.

His wicked smile was there again, teasing her, mocking her attempt to control the situation. "As I told you a moment ago, we have all night, Leah. There is no need to hurry, you are not going anywhere."

"Thank you for reminding me that I'm your prisoner."

"I do not take prisoners. You are my guest." He wrapped an arm around her smoothly, his free hand cupping her cheek.

"I'm afraid your sense of hospitality is more than a little distorted. If you treat all your guests like this, your parties must be the stuff of legends."

"If you talk to all your lovers like that, their ears must buzz for days on end", he said, placing a finger over her lips.

She tried to speak, but his mouth was over hers before she could say anything.

_I'm guessing I'll have to get used to not having the last word ever again._

Loki spun her around so she was facing the window, and Leah felt his lips on the back of her neck, kissing, licking. She shuddered when his mouth lingered at the sensitive spot between her neck and her shoulder. One of his hands was tangled in her hair, making her arch her neck to give him better access, and the other crawled under the skirt of her dress, tugging at the fabric.

"Don't destroy my dress, it's the only decent thing I found in that monstrosity of a closet", she said, turning around to face him.

"I will take care of that tomorrow. You will not wear anything that belongs to another woman", he whispered against her lips before his mouth crashed fully upon hers.

This time the force of the kiss made her stumble. Loki swung her off her feet into his arms and headed for the bedroom. Before they could reach the bed she felt the zipper of her dress glide down. Soon her dress and bra were on the floor and his hands were on her again, teasing and caressing, but never going below her waist.

"I won't be unfairly naked for the second night in a row while you're still wearing an entire Renaissance Fair's worth of clothes", she said.

"Undress me, then", he laughed, taking a step back and standing beside the bed, with his arms outstretched to the sides.

A bit unsure of where to begin, she struggled to push off his leather coat until it pooled on the floor. He didn't move, didn't speak, didn't try to touch her even once, letting her fumble with the vambraces, shoulder guards, belts, tunic, boots... When he finally stood before her wearing just his leather trousers, Leah sat on the edge of the bed and waited.

Loki frowned and took a step towards her. "You are not finished."

Without saying a word, Leah drew her hand across the lean muscles of his abdomen, tracing the shapes on his cool skin. She finally found the laces of his trousers and started undoing them, inch by inch. Taking special care not to touch his growing hardness underneath, despite being perfectly aware of Loki's quickening breath. She slid the garment down his legs and only then she started touching him, lazily, using only the tips of her fingers to draw feather-light trails along his length.

_You're not the only one with abilities to show off, mister._

She looked up when her attentions were rudely interrupted by the pressure of a hand on the back of her neck.

"Tease." Loki was looking at her with feverish eyes, his lips parted in a crooked smile. "Do I have to drag you to your knees, or will you get down there willingly, like you did in Stuttgart?"

"You promised me several hours. I'm just making time the best way I can..." she said, sliding from the bed to the floor and stroking him a few times before taking him in her mouth at last. She slid her hands up his thighs while her mouth inched down his length, her motions as slow as she could manage. Licking the tip, running her tongue along the underside before wrapping her lips fully around him in a rhythmical motion that she knew would send him over the edge in a minute.

She heard Loki curse (at least it sounded like a curse) in a language she didn't understand. His hips jerked forward and he yanked her by the hair, abruptly, pulling her away from him before she could finish.

"Ouch! If that's all you can handle, I'm going to start questioning your divinity", she said, with her head immobilized in his grip.

Loki relaxed the grasp on her hair a little. "My divinity is out of question, but the things you are doing with that mouth are becoming quite dangerous... and I do not mean the witty remarks." He lifted her up from her kneeling position and pushed her on the bed, hovering over her, lightly tracing her bottom lip with his tongue and kissing his way down her body. His lips met her stomach and lingered there for a moment before taking the top of her knickers between his teeth and dragging them down, painstakingly slowly.

_If he's half as good with that tongue as he is with his hands, I'm doomed._

Leah bit her lip and let out a reluctant sigh. Her loins were on fire, and the vision of the god's head between her legs wasn't exactly helping. After nuzzling the inside of her thighs for a moment he flicked his tongue against her folds once, twice, teasing her with slow and calculated movements, enjoying her wetness. She gasped, caught in a breathless moment, and tried to push her hips towards him, but he had her firmly grasped and she couldn't move. Loki let out a moan against her sex that vibrated through her being, making her hair stand on end. She wanted... no, she needed him inside so much that her whole body ached.

Mercifully, after what looked like a very short moment he stopped and rolled on his back, pulling Leah towards him and making her straddle him. His hands moved down her back, holding her hips and guiding her down onto him until he was buried to the hilt. She whimpered, giving herself time to get used to the invasion of her body before starting a screwing motion.

Something was stirring inside of her, something not completely physical. She could feel her body going slack from the mounting pleasure. Her pretense of disconnection between physique and mind was being shattered, crumbled under the expert touch of Loki's hands on her skin. His fingers dug on her hips, pushing her further down against his hardness with each thrust, until he sat up and slipped one hand between their bodies, his long fingers reaching down to caress her core. Then he drew her into a kiss, open-mouthed and messy, panting and muttering things that she didn't hear because the sound of her own heart was too loud.

She had been so sure of herself when she had knelt before him... The plan had been simple, driving him crazy with her mouth and cutting the moment short. In, out, in, out, and _voilá_ happy ending. It should have been just like the night before... Pant, moan, whimper, moan, ragged breath, and in the end the trickster would be tricked. But the lies that a person tells herself have a limit, and when Loki pressed his forehead to hers and her eyes locked with his burning gaze that limit was trespassed and she forgot everything. Because before, before he had claimed her body without touching her mind, but this time the god inside her was reaching places way beyond her control.

This time she felt it coming from afar. An orgasm, a real one, unlike the one she had faked the night before. She desperately tried to take her mind elsewhere, think of something gross and off-putting, but the wave was already too high to ride. Her vision blurred and her world exploded while she climaxed in relative silence, with just a quiet sobbing noise that she tried to conceal clutching the god's shoulders, hiding her face in his neck. Loki relaxed the rhythm of his thrusts for a second, and then he stopped abruptly.

_Damn._

He flipped her over, pushing her body down on the mattress. Leah felt the pressure of Loki's chest on top of hers and sensed all air leave her lungs. His hand curled around her throat, and she had no other choice than to look at him.

"Lying bitch", he spat between his clenched teeth. He lowered his head and Leah felt a sharp pain halfway between neck and shoulder, right on the spot where he had kissed her so carefully before. He bit harder and a small trickle of blood slid down her skin, falling on the white sheet.

She was paralyzed, with her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, waiting for the moment when the pressure over her throat would increase, but it didn't happen. He kept his icy eyes fixed on her, trembling with rage, although his expression was more hurt than angry. She realized that she felt a bit sorry for him, and that thought scared her even more.

_You're feeling pity for the man that's going to kill you? That's a new low, stupid._

"Give me one reason, one simple reason not to break your neck here and now." There was pain in Loki's voice, as if he felt he had been betrayed. "Have I not been completely honest with you? Have I mistreated you in any way?"

"You are now", she croaked, feebly. He released the grip on her neck, but she was still immobilized under his weight.

"What a pretty little show you put on for me yesterday! Every moment of last night, every moment of tonight has been a lie. Your kisses were a mockery and your mind has been worlds apart from here while your body was in my bed. I trusted you and you lied to me! Why?" There were tears in his eyes now, and one of them fell on Leah's cheek as he spoke.

"Because I'm a coward, that's why! I should have stood against you in Stuttgart. I should have resisted when you brought me here, I should have forced you to kill me. But I went with my self-preservation instinct, I yielded to save my ass!" She felt tears, her own, threatening to appear in her eyes, but she blinked to fight them. "My mind and my pleasure were the only things I could keep from you... but apparently I can't even do that anymore."

"Do you really want to know why I brought you here, Leah? Because I thought that, in a way, we were alike. We are both selfish and conceited; we see the darkness of the world and thrive in it. I thought you, among all the pathetic creatures that inhabit your world, would be willing to see that."

She sighed and let her head fall limp again on the pillow. "Maybe you're right. Maybe we are more alike than I wanted to admit, and now I'll end up dead for fucking everything up." She raised one hand to his face, touching the wet trail on his cheek first and then the small smudge of blood on his lips. Loki flinched, but didn't pull away.

"I have never seen a creature as stubborn as you." He held her chin in his hand and frowned at her. "You are not even considering the possibility of pleading for your life. Of making peace with your God and begging me for forgiveness."

"I don't know if I can make peace with him... I'm afraid I've hurt him worse than he could hurt me." Their faces were just an inch away now, and she slowly tilted her head up and pressed her lips to his. A trace of metallic taste hit her tongue, strange but not entirely unpleasant. Loki had his eyes closed and didn't move at first; after a moment he balanced his weight on his forearms, still hovering over her but releasing a bit of the pressure of his body on hers.

"Will I ever hear an apology from these lips, woman?" He said, brushing his thumb over her mouth.

"I'm sorry."

"It took you long enough."

"For what it's worth, I didn't think you would care, and besides..." Loki covered her mouth with his hand before she could finish, his eyes hard and arrogant again.

"Listen to me very carefully, because I will say this only once." His voice was husky and cold, and there was something unnerving in that deadly quietness. "The only sounds I want to hear from you for the rest of the night are moans, whimpers and the occasional screaming of my name. No more sass, no more arguments, no more witty banter. Not. One. Word. You denied me your pleasure once, and before you leave this bed I will reclaim it a dozen times. Have I made myself clear?"

Leah nodded in silence, and then a soft and swirling darkness closed around her. Loki held her so tight that it almost hurt, feasting on her flesh, burying himself in her, lifting her off the bed with each thrust. His lips upon her were all she could feel, his piercing eyes all she could see. He was darkness and she was darkness and every time her climax came again she screamed, wailing like a banshee, while her reality shattered in a thousand pieces.

Loki had defeated her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! This chapter was long, and a bit hard to write. Critique and comments are always welcome.


	6. The Little Things You Do Together

**May 19. The Catskills.**

Leah woke up at noon. Disoriented, melodramatically sprawled on the bed under a wrinkled sheet, and wondering if she would be able to cross her legs ever again. The bite on her shoulder hurt, not too much but there was an unpleasant sensation around the broken skin. All her muscles were sore, as if she had run a marathon.

_Well, it turns out you **can** have too much of a good thing. _

She didn't even try to move. She just lay there, in the dim light, staring at the ceiling, until she felt the sheet slide slowly from her body. Out of instinct, she reached for it and grabbed it just as it went past her thighs, sitting up in the process. Loki was crouched at the end of the bed, like a predator ready to pounce on her, and there was one of those wicked little smiles on his face.

"Ah, the lady awakes."

"Have you been stalking me while I slept?" Her voice was little more than a hoarse whisper. She remembered herself screaming to the top of her lungs the night before, and mentally added her vocal chords to the list of body parts that weren't exactly functioning at top capacity.

"I like how peaceful you look while you sleep. And how _quiet_ ", he added with a smirk.

"Yesterday you said you liked my conversation. Have you changed your mind about the convenience of exchanging me for a blonde, brainless bimbo? Someone who would only say _Yes, my Lord_ and _No, my Lord_ until you die of boredom?" she said, tugging on the sheet and finally managing to get it back and cover herself.

"Right now I would not change you for any other woman in the universe."

She frowned. "I thought you were angry with me."

"I was. But today is another day, and you have done enough penance." He sat beside her on the edge of the bed and brushed his fingers over her thigh, stroking lightly upwards, before resting a hand on her hip. He wasn't smiling anymore. "Look at me, Leah."

_And they say women have mood swings... I wish I knew what he's thinking, just once._

"I want you to swear that you will not keep anything from me again. Every thought that goes through your mind, every inch of your skin, every bit of air you breathe belongs to me."

"I don't understand why..."

"You do not need to understand." His voice was practically a growl and his fingers moved to the back of her neck, digging into her skin with just the right amount of force to send goosebumps down her spine. "You are mine."

"Sorry, but that sounds medieval."

"I do not care how it sounds."

"But if you want the absolute truth from me, you know that my mind doesn't work that way. That the idea of... submitting like that to someone else is something I can't stand." She sighed and reached for his hand. Why was his skin always so cold? "Look, I faked an orgasm. Once. One single, stupid time. I had my reasons, however selfish or wrong they were. And I already said I'm sorry."

"You are sorry because you got caught. If you saw yourself in the same situation again..."

"... yes, I would probably do the same thing."

Loki let out an exasperated grunt. "Is there a heart beating beneath those exquisite breasts, or have I been unlucky enough to get the only heartless woman on all Midgard?"

"What do you want with my heart now? The... agreement we had was to share your bed, and I only agreed to that under blackmail and moderately drunk. Now you suddenly ask for more, for an intimacy that I can't give you."

"That you do not want to give me." The look in his eyes was feverish, hungered.

"I just don't understand why it's so important to you."

His lips tensed for a moment, and he pressed his forehead to hers. "I want both your mind _and_ your heart. I want you to accept that you belong to me, and that is all you need to know."

"We had an agreement."

"I am changing it." Before she could think of an answer, he stood up. "Come to the other room, I have something for you. Do not get dressed."

_Do not get dressed? I hope the surprise isn't a sexy maid uniform. Things are already twisted enough without any kinky stuff._

She scurried out of bed as steadily as she could, wrapping the sheet around her, and followed Loki to the living room. The dirty dishes had disappeared from the table, and there were several boxes and shopping bags scattered all around the floor and the chairs.

"My memories of last night may be blurred, but I don't remember crawling out of bed and cleaning the dinner table. And I really can't picture you doing the dishes."

"Do not worry about that. If you enjoy cooking, you can keep doing it; the rest will be taken care of."

"Do you have an invisible housekeeper? Because that wouldn't be half creepy."

"It amazes me how you lose yourself in mundane matters when you should be looking at bigger things." He snickered and signaled at the boxes. "Those are for you."

Tying the sheet around her like an improvised sarong, Leah opened one of the shopping bags. Inside it there was a green silk cocktail dress. The box next to her contained two pairs of patent pumps. She went through the rest of the bags, revealing a few more dresses of different lengths and materials, several pairs of lace underwear, and finally a black wool cape. Everything was new, expensive, surprisingly elegant, and, except for one or two black items, everything fell within a color range that went from forest green to a deep dark emerald.

_Maybe this isn't the best time to tell him that I never wear green because it clashes with my skintone._

She sat on the carpet and remained in silence for a while, dumbfounded, running her hands over the soft fabric of the cape. When she turned around to look at Loki she saw he was holding a square box with a bottle of perfume in it. Green, of course. He offered it to Leah with a mute gesture and an eager look in his eyes. He was clearly expecting some kind of answer from her, so she stood up and opened the box.

"Green." It seemed the only word her brain was able to process. "I mean... Poison by Dior. I hope it's not a metaphor for anything."

"I have been compared to a snake before. It seemed... appropriate."

"Thank you." She wasn't sure how to express gratitude, if at all. Showering her with gifts after what had transpired the night before was an unexpected move on his part. And accepting those gifts was sort of agreeing to prostitute herself further, but not accepting them didn't seem to be a viable option. She stood on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek, but he suddenly moved and captured her lips in a demanding kiss while his hand wandered under the sheet. Leah found herself responding with more enthusiasm than she should to his insistent caresses.

"I... I should try those on. And make something for breakfast... brunch. Whatever meal is right for this time of day", she whispered when he finally let her go. "Don't you have to go plan an invasion, or something?"

"Not today, kitten. I am staying here all day."

"I live for the moment you run out of animals to compare me with."

"And I live for the moment you actually are at a loss for words", he remarked while she gathered the pile of clothes and disappeared towards the bedroom.

After taking a quick shower, and trying and discarding several outfits, Leah chose a simple knitted dress. A black one, because a part of her was still resenting all that green that had been shoved upon her, and she had always felt comfortable in black. Once in the kitchen, she checked the contents of the fridge and saw that the same invisible hand that had cleaned up after dinner had also replenished the groceries, and that there were two bottles of chilled white wine on the top tier. She poured herself a glass while she cut the vegetables, and then another while she waited for the oven to heat.

She was in a strange mood; a mix of sorry and grateful, sulky and nervous. Her strategy of "wait and see what happens" was working, to a point. On the other hand, she now knew how little was necessary to provoke the god's anger, and that was definitely an experience not to be repeated.

_I can't think about this now or I'll go insane. I could do worse than being fucked proper and showered with designer clothes... let's concentrate on that._

Holding on to that thought, she managed to keep her mind on the food preparation for a while. An hour (and half a bottle of wine) later, she looked almost proudly at the freshly made pot of tomato soup on the stove, and the casserole of macaroni and cheese in the oven; she was definitely feeling a little better.

_All I'm cooking since I arrived here is comfort food. Freud would have a field day with this._

When she returned to the living room she found Loki curled up on the couch with a book in his hand. He was examining the leather binding, leafing through the pages with a puzzled expression. It was _The Count of Monte Cristo,_ the same old book that she had started reading, and later had discarded on the floor, the day before. He beckoned her to his side with a vague gesture.

"Do you know this book?"

"I've read it. Several times, in fact. It's a really good one."

"I am afraid I do not trust your Midgardian standards for _goodness_. What is it about?"

"People usually read the book to find out."

"I want to be sure it is worth my time. Tell me."

"Fine", she said, sitting close to him and snatching the book from his hands. "It's a tale of revenge... a brilliant one, if you ask me. A young man is betrayed by his close friends an imprisoned for many years. After he escapes, he plots a very complicated plan to ruin the life of the men who destroyed his happiness... And I'm not telling you the ending; you'll have to read it for yourself."

"Revenge. That is a mighty subject to write about", he mused. "As long as this Midgardian author has addressed it well."

"There's not much you can do about it if he didn't... He's been dead for almost one hundred and fifty years."

"We will see... Read it to me", he said, reclining on the sofa and pulling Leah to his lap.

"You can't be serious. In case you haven't noticed, I'm hoarse as a crow. And this is five hundred pages long." She squirmed, but his arm was like a steel grip around her waist.

"That is not important. Read." He didn't raise his voice to command. If anything, it sounded softer than before. Leah shifted on his lap trying to find a comfortable position, kicked off her shoes and started reading.

_"Chapter 1. Marseilles. On the 24th of February, 1810, the look-out at Notre-Dame de la Garde signalled the three-master, the Pharaon from Smyrna, Trieste, and Naples. As usual, a pilot put off immediately, and rounding the Chateau d'If, got on board the vessel between Cape Morgion and Rion island..."_

* * *

 

"Leah, wake up."

"Mmh?" She looked at her watch and grunted, stretching on the couch. She clearly remembered starting chapter ten, but she couldn't quite mark the moment when she had dozed off. Loki was now sitting on the carpet and, judging by the position of the bookmark, he had finished the rest of the novel in less than four hours.

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the middle-of-the-forest six PM book club. Tonight, a classic tale of treason and revenge has been devoured by one of the most brilliant minds in the known universe."

"I would hate to cover that lovely mouth of yours, but you are a handful of words away from being gagged."

She pouted and stuck her tongue at him.

"And stop behaving like a child."

"I can't behave like an adult if you don't let me." She leaned towards him and ran a hand through his hair. "Funny."

"What is funny?"

"When I was in college, I swore to myself I'd never be with a guy with prettier hair than me. It was a tough call, in the late nineties, with all the boys sporting those long, blond grunge manes. And look at me now... you're making me go back on my principles."

"I am glad to hear that. Maybe you never had any principles to lose."

"Oh, but I did, back then. I was the most self-righteous, bookwormish, well behaved freshman in all Columbia. You should have seen me later, during Law School... I was absolutely sure I was going to be the next bloody Atticus Finch. Defending the innocent and the poor against the evil corporations."

Loki lifted an eyebrow. "What happened to you?"

"During my first year out of Law School I started working on a public interest law firm in Boston, assisting underrepresented people and lost causes in general. There was this very important employment discrimination case I wanted to win at any cost... I was ready for anything they could throw at me; I researched all relevant cases, consulted with several of my colleagues, worked on my statements for weeks as if the fate of the whole world depended on them."

"And you lost your case."

"More than that. I was brilliant, focused, I was full of purpose, and they thrashed me at court. Completely and utterly thrashed. The other part had a team of lawyers that looked like the Apocalypse riders, and my clients never stood a chance. I remember going back to the office after the trial, getting drunk on my own and falling asleep on my desk, hating myself for not being able to help those people. And then... I got a call, later that same night, from one of the Apocalypse guys. He wanted to hire me for his firm. I guess he saw something in me that I hadn't noticed... and he must have been right, because I accepted. I was so frustrated with my job, and so tired! Tired of the long hours working in a crappy office with no money, no resources and no prospects except for a lot more underpaid work. So I took a leap and changed sides."

"You made a decision, you chose a better future for yourself."

"And now I work for the same evil guys that I despised so much before. The funny thing is... I'm starting to see a pattern. When I accepted the offer from U&M I was desperate, exhausted and tipsy. And when you brought me here and I agreed to be your personal fuck doll I was exactly in the same state."

"Do not call yourself that."

"Then what? Whore? Plaything? Pet...? What am I exactly in your grand scheme? What do you want me to be?"

Loki held her face in his hands. "I already told you, I want everything. I want you to give yourself to me completely, without any reservations. To trust me with your life and your soul. There may be a name for that, but it is not any of those you just implied."

"Loki..."

He blinked, surprised. "Finally. Do you realize this is the first time you have pronounced my name?"

"I screamed it a couple of times yesterday night. At least I think I did."

"You did. Ever so beautifully, but you were not in full possession of your mental faculties yesterday night."

"And whose fault was that?"

"Why must every conversation with you be a fight, Leah? Why is so hard for you to just do what I want?"

"You were the one who didn't want a mindless body. Well, here I am, a body with a voice. Sometimes this voice is going to say things you won't like... and I think you want me exactly for that reason. Because if every word that came out of me was _Yes, Loki_ or _As you wish, Loki_... you wouldn't want me anymore. For some reason I can't understand, you enjoy the fight."

Loki laughed, and Leah instinctively moved back to the far end of the couch. His laughter was slightly scarier than his anger. But then he sat close to her again and pressed a kiss to the side of her neck. "I am enjoying the fight... within reasonable limits. But be careful not to test my patience beyond those limits. You do not want to know what lies beyond them. Do not challenge me."

"I'm trying really hard not to." She burrowed into his arms, reluctantly at first, and rested her head against his chest. There was something in the slow pace of his heartbeat that always made her lose all her resolve. "I told you what happened to me. Now, can we talk about what happened to _you_?"

"What do you mean?" Loki stiffened, and his eyes showed the usual hard, cold stare again.

"I'm not the only one of us who has hated herself at some point. I'm not the only one who's damaged", she said, in a trembling voice. "You say you want to invade this world, but what I saw in Stuttgart was a man who wanted to be worshipped. Admired."

"A god."

"Whatever. And then there's me. You say I'm here just to be fucked, but after just two days you want more. You threaten me with violence and right after that you cover me in gifts. Something is eating up your mind. I'm not an expert in psychology, but it's not hard to see that something happened to you, at some point in your life, and you're sort of overcompensating for it."

"My motivations are none of your concern. You speak of things you know nothing about, and it is best for you that you remain that way." He detached himself from her. "You have not eaten today. Get the dinner ready."

"Fine, have it your way." Leah let out an annoyed sigh. "Shall I get dressed for dinner? It's a pity that some of those gowns are so lovely when no one but you is going to see them."

"As a matter of fact, someone will. I have something to do in the city tomorrow, and you will come with me." He paused to let the news sink in Leah's brain. "To New York."

"Taking the pet for a walk? Do you think I'll be trained enough to behave in public without embarrassing you?"

He brought her face close to his and touched his lips to hers for a brief instant. "I know you will."


	7. The Ladies Who Lunch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: language and violence.

**May 20. New York.**

The typically jammed succession of cars that circulated slowly through the congested Manhattan streets was momentarily disrupted when a procession of three black vehicles with tinted windows took a turn to the right on the corner of Park Avenue and 53rd street.

The two passengers of the middle car were not on very amicable terms. Loki had his eyes closed and had not said a word to Leah, or to the driver, during the hour and a half trip from the Catskill Mountains to Manhattan. Leah, on her part, was also silent and sulky. Despite all that, she couldn't help smiling when she looked out of the window and saw Central Park to their right. She liked big cities, and New York had always been one of her favorites.

"I don't suppose we can stop for a walk in the park", she joked, trying to pull Loki from his obstinate silence.

"That may be the stupidest question you have asked me since we met." The answer was cold and cruel, but at least he was looking at her. "Have you changed your mind about our earlier argument?"

She looked away and shook her head. Argument? No, an argument implied a confrontation of two more or less equal sides, and that was never the case between her and Loki.

"I still don't see why do you want to parade me in front of SHIELD wearing your colors, as if I was a spoil of war."

"The war has not started yet. And this is just a visit, not an exhibition." He ran his fingertips over the bare skin of her arm. "If I wanted to parade you as a trophy in front of my enemies, perhaps I would make you wear nothing at all."

Leah closed her eyes and leaned her head against the headrest, remembering the brief quarrel that they'd had a few hours before.

_"I'm not wearing that dress!"_

_"Of course you are. I got it for you."_

_"Maybe you haven't noticed, but the décolletage on that thing is a bit distracting."_

_"It shows your shoulders. I have seen more of you at any given moment of these last days... in fact, I am seeing more of you right now."_

_"What it shows is every single bruise on my neck, not to mention that bite you gave me. Is that how you want people to see me, marked and branded as your property?"_

_"Enough! You will wear what I tell you to wear, even if I have to tie you down and put the dress on you by force. You have ten minutes."_

Loki had thrown the offending garment on the bed and stormed out of the room, slamming the door after him. She had stood like an inanimate object in the middle of the bedroom, in her lace underwear and satin slip, with her fists clenched and her breath ragging until her little bout of anger vanished and she could finally bring herself to the vanity and finish her makeup. To make things worse, the dress (a vintage Versace gown of dark green silk) was beautiful, almost a work of art. The problem was its significance, the meaning of being a part of his exhibition of power and the unavoidable feeling that she was, once again, losing a part of herself in the process.

She didn't open her eyes of move again until the driver finally stopped the car in front of an Art Decó building. The street appeared to be closed to the traffic, but the three cars were allowed to park right in front of the restaurant known as the Cub Room. The sidewalk was empty, except for half a dozen of bulky men in suits and sunglasses, obviously security guards of some kind.

One of them saw them coming and opened the door for them. The restaurant was small and classically decorated, with hardwood floors and crisp white tablecloths. There were more guards inside, a few of them visibly armed, along with several waiters and waitresses, all of them trying very hard not to show that they'd rather be barricaded behind the bar. Only one of the dozen tables was occupied, by two men who didn't seem too surprised to see that Loki had arrived with company. The god gave them a condescending look as he sat down.

"Fury. Stark." That was all he did to acknowledge them.

"Good evening, Miss Channing", said the man with the eyepatch. He looked intently into Leah's eyes, probably to see if they were an unusual shade of blue, if her mind was being controlled by Loki. She just nodded in his direction and sat down in silence, not knowing if the god would want her to speak with these people or not.

"I see you have taken your time to investigate my lovely companion", said Loki with a smirk. "You could have asked me instead, it would have saved you a waste of your resources."

"Miss Channing disappeared from her office in mysterious circumstances three days ago", answered the other man. "Knowing that you had made her acquaintance at you little German street show made SHIELD worry about her well-being. That's what the people on Earth do, Asgardian boy. They care about each other. Now, do you mind if I accompany the lady to the bar while you discuss your world domination threats with Fury?"

Loki gave the man one of his coldest glares. "If you knew what I am capable of you would not speak to me like that."

"I know exactly what you're capable of, and that's why I think you won't want her to hear certain things."

"Do not get her out of my sight. I will be watching you."

"I'm truly happy to see you again, too", mocked the man while he held the chair for Leah to stand up. The bar was only a few yards away, far enough to perceive the conversation between Loki and Colonel Fury only as a faint background noise. The man in the expensive Armani suit waved a hand to one of the waiters.

"Boy, bring a martini and a double scotch on the rocks, we're parched here. And keep them coming." He sat down on one of the bar stools and turned his back to the restaurant area. "So, how are you doing, Miss Channing?"

"I'm having the best week of my life", she said with a bitter laugh. "What do you think?"

"You're right, stupid question. I'm Tony Stark; you may not remember me, which in other circumstances I would find personally offending, but we've met before."

Leah let out a little sigh of relief when a very nervous waiter placed a dry martini in front of her. "I know we've met, but I don't recall exactly when or how."

"Five years ago, at a fundraising party in Boston. Your boss Fred Malcolm introduced us."

"Oh, yes! I remember now. You gave a very extravagant donation, stared at my ass for five minutes and then disappeared from the party with a Russian model."

"I considered testing the waters with you first, but you seemed much more interested in the mechanics of fundraising economics than in my humble person."

"Not really... I just thought you were a bit pompous."

"I'm glad to see that your tastes in men have changed since then."

"If that was a joke, you have the sense of humor of a nasty fifth grader", she said, holding her half-empty glass in mid-air.

_Maybe I'm going to need another martini... because I'm seriously wondering what would happen if I threw this one on Tony Stark's face._

"It was a very lame joke, sorry. Look, I've seen the footage of what happened in Stuttgart... I'm guessing it wasn't exactly your choice to leave everything behind and go on a little holiday with Mr. Real Power over there." He gulped his drink and pushed the empty glass towards the waiter. "Or was it?"

"If you're implying that I went with him on my own free will, you can kindly go fuck yourself, Mr. Stark", she answered between gritted teeth.

Tony leaned over the bar, with his suddenly serious eyes fixed in his glass of scotch. "Thank you. Now that we're past the pleasantries, I need you to tell me if you think that your life's in danger. Because, if it is, SHIELD has enough agents surrounding this building to carry out a rescue operation in less than two minutes."

"If you do that and something goes wrong, a lot of your people could die in less than two minutes."

"Don't give me that, Jersey girl. Anyone born on this planet is one of ours, and we're not going to leave one of ours in the hands of that alien rockstar wannabe."

"You know he's probably listening to all we're saying, right?"

"Probably, but I don't give a damn. We took him down once and we can do it again... although someone will have to redecorate the place after we're finished."

Leah really didn't know what to answer. The fact that SHIELD was willing to risk lives to rescue her hadn't crossed her mind before. Then something clicked: this wasn't about her, at least not specifically. "Of course, if you take Loki's most prized hostage away, it will be easier for you lot to overpower him without any collateral damage. And it's even possible that it will mess with his mind a little."

"I like the way your brain works", said Tony with a smirk. "When all of this is over, remind me to hire you for my legal team."

"Well, you can't be worse than the people I've been working for lately."

"I'm sure that cynic pessimism of yours is a fantastic way to make friends."

"This cynic pessimism is the only thing that..." Leah's witty remark died on her lips when a blonde waitress placed another martini glass in front of them, shoving the drink towards her with so much force than a few drops spilled on the bar.

"Your drink, ma'am." Three short, polite words, but in the tense atmosphere of the place they sounded like an insult.

_Now why is she looking at me as if I, instead of my dress, was the green one?_

"Thank you." Leah tried to dismiss the waitress with a head inclination, but the woman kept on staring at her. "May I ask what is so interesting about my face?"

"I was just wondering what exactly did you have to do to get that pretty dress", said the waitress, curtly.

Leah started drumming her fingers on the bar and gave the woman a fake half-smile. "That's nothing of your concern. Just bring me another drink in five minutes and don't expect me to leave you a tip."

The woman took half a step towards the end of the bar, but a moment later she was back, pretending to wipe the spilled drink with a napkin.

"Do you think of all the people he's killed while you suck him off?"

"What?"

"Ladies!" Out of the corner of her eye Leah saw Tony Stark's furrowed brow. He had raised a hand between the two women, asking for peace, but Leah was too incensed to stop.

"Let her speak, Mr. Stark. She obviously has very clear ideas about what other people should do with their lives." Maybe a good verbal fight, one she could actually _win_ , was what she needed to lift her deflated spirits.

"I think you're disgusting. Spreading your legs for that maniac and bowing to his greatness... In exchange for what? Jewels, clothes? Will he make you his official royal slut if he conquers the planet?" The waitress was leaning over the bar, her face mere inches away from Leah's. In a few seconds, her veiled hostility had turned into full-blown hatred.

"If you ever come to be in my shoes, then and only then you'll be allowed to make assumptions about my life. Meanwhile, I suggest you mind your own business and go back to waiting tables for six bucks an hour, bitch." Leah was being purposely mean and she knew it, but she refused to make excuses, to admit the small pang of guilt she had felt, earlier that day, at the sight of her dolled up self in the vanity mirror.

"I hope they lock you up for life when all this is finished." The woman was practically spitting poison now. "I hope he gets tired of you and leaves you for dead on the side of a road after he finds himself another pretty face to fuck."

"Finally, we get to the interesting part! Is that what this is about? Do you want me to put your name on the list? Because if that's what you're aiming for, I don't think he likes the dumb trashy kind."

"I may be trashy but at least I'm earning my keep, not whoring myself for it."

Leah felt the blood pulse in her ears and a red-hot anger took over her; after several days of bottling up her feelings she almost welcomed the sensation. She wanted to jump the bar and scream at the waitress, pull her hair, unleash all her rage on her once and for all. She felt Tony Stark lay a hand on her forearm, silently asking her not to react, and then, only a fraction of a second later, she heard a noise, a piercing scream... that came from the blonde waitress.

No human being could have moved so fast, but somehow Loki had crossed the space between his table and the bar and was holding the woman by the neck, lifting her from the ground. There was death in his eyes, death and contempt, and before anyone could react he had thrown her against the opposite wall. Now it was Leah's turn to scream and she ran towards the god, almost tripping on the hem of her dress, launching herself between him and his victim and trying to hold him back.

"Loki, stop!" She shoved her hands against his chest and pushed in vain, attempting to make him notice her at least. He took another step towards the fallen woman and Leah clung to his neck, desperately trying to slow him, to make him listen. On the back of her mind she registered the sight of a dozen guns and assault rifles pointing at Loki. At both of them. "Loki, please!"

Maybe it was the _please_ what finally made the god lower his bloodshot eyes to her. Maybe it was something else. He slid his hands over Leah's arms, pulling her gently away from him.

"This woman has insulted you for the last time. I will not tolerate that behavior in my presence."

"Please!" She stood her ground in front of him, stubbornly holding the lapels of his suit and trying not to look at the squirming figure on the floor. "I've never asked you for anything, but please, do this for me! Don't harm her."

"If we were on Asgard she would already be dead. Why are you willing to speak up for someone who was shouting abuse at you a moment ago?"

"Just this time. For me. Please..." Leah's mind had stopped working, she couldn't even try to find the right words to appease Loki. She finally managed to trip on one of her heels and stumble, but he caught her in mid air before she fell.

"Fine. Just this time, I will let your misguided mercy stop my hand." Still with one hand on her waist he turned Leah around, making her face the corner where the other woman was leaning on the wall and whimpering. "Look at the lady, you whore, and thank her for saving your miserable life."

Leah suddenly felt as if her stomach had turned inside out; she instinctively tried to back away, but Loki had her securely grasped. The waitress crawled an inch towards her and muttered an apology before fixing her eyes on the on the ground again.

"And pray to whatever pitiful god you have that I do not see you in my presence again, ever", he spat.

Following a sign from Colonel Fury, the guards lowered their weapons and a couple of them hurried to the injured woman, joined by a team of paramedics that must had been on hold somewhere inside the building.

Leah looked at the god, still worried that anything, anyone, could do something unexpected and provoke his anger once again. To her relief, the malevolence in Loki's eyes had subsided, but the knot in her own stomach kept on growing, pumping up bile and making her head spin. Despite the air conditioning being on, she felt like she was suffocating.

"I have to... I need to... Can you excuse me for a moment?" she asked Loki, signalling the way to the ladies' room downstairs.

"Are you ill?" He sounded genuinely worried, for once. Leah just nodded, mentally berating herself for looking so weak and whiny, for wanting to curl up in a corner and cry until the strangling sensation in her throat had disappeared. Without waiting for an answer she hurried down the steps, kicked the restroom door and barely had enough time to kneel inside one of the cubicles before the contents of her stomach abandoned her. She sat on the floor and rested her burning forehead against the tiled wall until the dizziness stopped.

There was a cosy sitting space beside the marble sink, and Leah fell clumsily on an armchair and kicked off her pumps after splashing some cold water on her face and wrists.

"Miss Channing?" came a voice from behind the restroom door. Holding her shoes in one hand, she opened the door to find a mildly worried Tony Stark. "Are you decent?"

"Decent? It depends on who you ask. That waitress called me everything but _decent_ a moment ago."

"Don't kick yourself over what happened out there. All the restaurant workers were briefed about your situation earlier today. That woman knew you were a hostage, and yet she chose to disregard Fury's direct orders and play 'holier than thou' with you. I'm not excusing what your boyfriend did, but her behaviour was beyond stupid", he said, stepping inside the restroom and closing the door behind him. "Before you ask, she's not as badly injured as it seemed, just a broken arm and a few bruised ribs. She'll be perfectly fine in no time."

"It's my fault. I should have shut my big mouth for once."

"I never judge a lady by her lover, and I'm most certainly not judging _you_. Unfortunately, the rescue operation I told you about would be compromised now, so I'm afraid you'll have to be patient for a while."

"I'm sorry, but... did you follow me down here just to tell me that? Because I kind of figured it out myself, and I don't think my 'boyfriend', as you called him, would be thrilled to see me talking to you right now."

"In fact, Fury and I were kind of hoping that you would be a clever girl and find a moment to get out of Loki's sight. There's someone else who would like to talk to you, and we didn't want to put him in the same room as Reindeer Games, or we'd be risking a restaurant-sized Armageddon." With those words he opened the door again and popped his head out. "What are you waiting for, Goldilocks?"

"I will not enter the ladies' room. It would not be appropriate", came a deep voice from outside.

"Bullshit. Get your ass in here before our friend upstairs gets impatient and blows up the place with us inside."

The blond, tall man came through the door almost apologetically, if that was possible in someone so big and broad-shouldered, and bowed his head to Leah in silence. She answered with a matching head inclination and a suspicious glance.

"Let me guess... you're not exactly from around here, right?"

"I am Thor of Asgard. Loki is my brother."

She let herself fall on the armchair again and covered her eyes with her hand. "Oh, boy..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note on the locations: the Cub Room pictured here is fictional, but inspired in a real place with that name, the VIP area of the New York nightclub/restaurant The Stork Club. It's heavily featured in the movie 'All About Eve'. The building was demolished in 1966, and the site is now the location of Paley Park.


	8. Ah, But Underneath

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: NSFW

"Adopted. From another world. Of which there are... nine, right?" Leah pressed her fingertips to her temples, trying to make sense of the flood of information Thor was pouring on her. He was telling her about the Jötnar and the war that had finished with Loki being taken into an Asgardian household.

"Yes. Jotunheim is a frozen realm, barren and wild, inhabited by Frost Giants. They look like..."

"No!" She interrupted the gold-haired Asgardian, holding her palms up in a gesture of defeat. "That's enough. I really, really don't want to know. Not if I have to go home with him tonight."

"Go easy on the lady, He-Man", said Tony, extracting a flask from his jacket pocket and handing it to Leah. "Try not to traumatize her for life with your war tales. Drink a bit of this, honey. Brewed and bottled in Kentucky especially for me."

She took a small sip and swallowed hard. "Bourbon. Not bad", she said, drinking a bit more.

"You may want to save some for later. This stuff is strong."

"That's funny. Tony Stark, world-class alcoholic, trying to give me lessons in temperance", she smirked, giving him the flask back.

"Never mind. Anyway, we should probably get going before Silvertongue starts missing you and makes a scene."

"So, first you drag me to a secret meeting in the bathroom, like a group of high school girlfriends sneaking out to have a smoke, and now that you two are sure that I don't know anything about Loki's invasion plans, I'm summarily dismissed? The only useful thing I've learned so far is that my alien acquaintance is a bit more alien than I had thought. And a bit more deranged", she observed while she put her shoes back on. "By the way, Stark, what's with you inventing nicknames for everybody? Silvertongue, really?"

"That is not an invention of the Man of Iron. My brother was indeed called that, back in Asgard", explained Thor.

Leah let out a fake childish giggle. "Well, that kind of explains a couple of things... especially if it's not related to his powers of speech." She experienced a sort of malicious satisfaction seeing Thor blush. The Asgardian shifted uncomfortably in his armchair, which was too small for him, and made an effort to change the topic.

"Despite all he has done, I still think there is hope for my brother. Not much, just a glimpse. And it may surprise you, Lady Leah..."

"Please, drop the treatment. This is Earth and we're in the ladies room, it doesn't get more familiar than that."

"Leah. Maybe some of that hope can come from you."

"From me?" she asked, lifting her eyebrows in disbelief. "I'm not sure if I want to know what you mean by that."

"The Loki I saw a few days ago in Stuttgart would have killed that serving maid in a heartbeat. And he certainly would not have listened to your pleas."

"Nonsense. You saw him out there, saw how uncontrollable he can be."

"I also observed that when you pleaded him for mercy, he listened to you. I am sure that you have touched something inside my brother... That he cares for you more than you think."

"That may be the scariest thing I've heard in months... Do you really know him so well that you can deduce all that after having seen us together for five minutes, from wherever you were hiding?"

"I know what I am talking about; I have given my heart to a Midgardian woman."

"Next time you see her, ask her to give it back. It will be for the best." She rose from her seat and checked the state of her hair in the mirror, trying to keep an impassive expression on her face. "Well, this has been a very interesting talk. Awkward and disturbing, too. But if I don't go back there right now he's going to come looking for me, and... if I witness more violence today I swear I'll throw up the first meal I ever ate."

Tony checked his watch and got up too. "Is there anyone you want us to deliver a message to? A friend, a relative?"

"Not really."

"Your ex-boyfriend has been nagging the German police with phone calls twice a day since you disappeared."

"Who, Mark? Wow, life gives you the strangest surprises." She considered it for a moment. "No, don't tell him anything. Or anybody else."

"Fine. Take care of yourself, doll."

"Thank you, Mr. Stark. Thor, it's been... it's been kind of weird meeting you, to be honest. But you look like a good man, and I don't meet many of those on a regular basis."

Her small hand disappeared into Thor's squeezy handshake.

"You are a remarkable woman. I am sorry about your... predicament, but in other circumstances I would have been glad for my brother to have found someone like you."

"He may have found me, but right now I'm feeling rather lost. Good evening, gentlemen." She recovered her hand, blinked a couple of times trying to shake the sadness that was threatening to creep into her mind, and started walking up the stairs to the restaurant.

Before the two men could exit the ladies' room, a sudden flash of green outside the door revealed a Loki-shaped silhouette, slightly transparent. His gaze followed Leah until she was completely out of sight and then, with another green flicker of light, it vanished into thin air.

* * *

Loki closed and bolted the door of the Catskills house behind them. Leah had never been claustrophobic, but she involuntarily tensed up when she heard the click of the security locks engaging, like the closing sound of a trap. Not bothering to take off her heels she let herself fall on the couch, burying her face in the soft velvet cushions and trying very hard not to think.

"Are you crying?" Again, the worried tone, the one that she didn't want to hear.

"I told you, I don't cry", came her voice, muffled from behind the cushions.

"Then what is wrong?"

"What is...? Have you forgotten that you almost fucking killed a human being in front of me?"

"She insulted you."

"And you don't think that was just a little out of proportion? You sent her flying to the other side of the room, for Christ's sake!"

"You stopped me."

"Barely. Just... barely."

"Leah, listen to me."

"No, _you_ listen to me. Why did you take me with you today? You could have left me here and avoided that scene." She took off one of her shoes and threw it across the room towards the hallway, where it landed with a loud noise.

"I never do anything without reason. If you absolutely must know, I wanted them to see that you were alive and well. A sign of good will."

"Bullshit. That wasn't good will, you were showing off." The other shoe flew over Loki's head and landed on the carpet with a dull thud. "You wanted SHIELD to know that I was still alive _and_ under your power. To think of me as someone with a face, not just a name in a missing persons report, so that now they'll be extra careful if they think of attacking while I'm with you."

There was an uncomfortable silence, and Leah sat up to see that Loki was staring at her. Still impassible, still unmoved.

"By the way, I met your brother at the restaurant."

"I know." His whole demeanor changed at the mention of Thor: his eyes became more haunted and he tightened his lips together in a hard line. "I expected Stark to make an attempt to talk to you in private. What I did not anticipate was that Thor would be there too... How perfectly sentimental of him. And, as he told you, we are not _real_ brothers."

"How do you know what he told me?"

He crouched beside the couch and held Leah's face between his hands. "I have ways of listening without being seen." His blue-green eyes sought her face and traveled to her lips. "What did you think of my... brother? Did his warrior stance impress you?" he whispered, with a hint of poison in his voice.

"Are you really going to play the jealous boyfriend? I thought one of the greatest minds in the universe would know me better than to believe that I would be distracted by that. The only thing that I wanted from him was to listen at what he said about you." She grabbed Loki's hands and pushed him away, annoyed. Hitching up the hem of her gown to avoid tripping on it, she walked towards the bar and poured herself a drink, Southern Comfort and Sprite.

"I do not like other men looking at what is mine. Especially Stark." He spat the name as if it were a curse word. "You seemed very eager, talking to him."

"Will you stop with that? I know Tony Stark's type, and I'm not it. He's not as shallow as he tries so hard to appear, and he wasn't interested in me anyway, only in knowing exactly what kind of pawn I am in your little sick game of conquest chess."

"He is known for having an excellent taste in women. It should not surprise me that he was admiring you."

"I'm taking that as a compliment, just to end this. Now, can you stop talking about me as if I was a new Lamborghini that Stark was checking out, instead of a person? I already feel objectified enough wearing this dress." Leah's fingers toyed with the fabric, knowing that it was impossible for her to be comfortable with all those yards of green silk around her.

"You still do not like it."

"Admit it's not exactly my style. And it's so long that I'm constantly scared of tripping."

"I have to admit that it would look better pooled at your feet."

"Now you're talking." This was a game she could play with her eyes closed, a way to feel alive without having to think or worry or consider the consequences. She placed her free hand on Loki's shoulder, pushing his jacket off him. He snatched the glass from her hand and took a sip, making a slight grimace.

"How can you drink this? It is disgusting."

"It's an acquired habit. Just like you", she said, recovering her glass and holding it far from Loki's reach.

"I am a habit?" He asked, arching an eyebrow. "Would you care to explain that?"

"The day you brought me here... Just four days ago, if my memory still works... I needed three of these to stomach the thought of getting into a bed with you. Tonight, I'm barely starting my first glass and I already want you to fuck me into the mattress."

"Language, Leah."

"Screw language. And screw me. In that order." She let out a humorless laugh. The suit jacket had fallen to the floor and her hand moved to his tie, loosening the knot just a bit. "On a second thought, forget the mattress. The fireplace is lit, the couch is as big as a bed, and this carpet is so thick that I could sleep on it. The people who lived here had a hideous taste, but at least they knew how to make a room comfortable."

Loki seemed amused with the thought. "When I rule over Midgard, you will have a palace if you want it."

"No." She raised a finger to his lips. "Please, don't. Don't speak of your plans, or the future, or of anything of consequence. Several times now you have asked for my silence, and now it's my turn. Just this time... shut up and fuck me. Make me stop thinking, Loki. Make me burn."

Loki placed a reassuring hand on her waist. "Whatever is on your mind, whatever worries you, I can take care of it."

"My mind it's not the one who requires your attention tonight." With slow movements, Leah left her glass on the table and started wrapping Loki's black tie around her hand, pulling him close, gripping him just a bit too tight as she locked her mouth against his. The tip of his tongue slipped between her lips and touched hers, gently. He let her loosen his tie completely and fumble with the shirt buttons until it was open to his waist.

"God, you're beautiful", she whispered against his lips.

"Do not call me God, we are way past the formalities." He flashed her one of his little, sly smiles and Leah laughed again, this time sincerely.

"Are you going to get this hideous dress off me, or shall I go to the bedroom alone, take care of myself and not let you watch?"

Loki's eyes darkened, and the grip on her waist became tighter. "You would have a very hard time trying to stop me from watching. And joining." One of his hands went to the nape of her neck, holding her in place. "What exactly is making you so adventurous tonight, lovely Leah?"

"Why are men so skeptical when a woman starts behaving like them? Is it so weird that I may want you on my own accord? That I want to use you as you've been using me?"

"It is an interesting development, considering that we did not start on a good note."

"I'm glad to see that you've mastered the use of euphemisms." She ran her fingers through Loki's hair and stood on her tiptoes to talk close to his ear _._ "Maybe I've finally convinced myself that I deserve a god of my own."

_Or maybe I don't give a damn anymore._

His hand slid across the swell of her hips and crept up, first to her breast and then to the small patch of skin near her shoulder where she still bore the mark of his teeth. Leah's breath hitched and she rocked her hips against his, drawing a low moan from the increasingly aroused god. She felt his warm breath against the hollow of her throat, followed by the awkward but not unwelcome touch of a pair of cold lips.

"Good, because I intend to ravish you all night... and again in the morning." His voice seeped into her mind, dripping with desire, bringing goosebumps onto her skin and a fierce blush to her cheeks.

_Silvertongue, indeed.  
_

He started tugging anxiously at the bodice of her gown; Leah brought a hand to her back to lower the zipper, but before she could even reach it she heard the distinct, tearing sound of fabric being ripped off, and the dress fell from her body in a shapeless mess, followed by the remains of her satin slip. She leaned down and pressed her lips to his exposed chest while managing to make quick work of his belt and trousers right before her hands started to shake.

It made her both nervous and bold, feeling Loki hot and hard under her palm, hearing the rhythm of his breathing go from quiet to frantic in mere seconds. She brushed his lips over his nipple and heard him hiss; when she repeated the movement a second time she felt a hand grab her hair and pull her up, stretching her backwards and exposing her neck to his ravenous mouth. The trail of bite-kisses left her breathless, whimpering; small drops of sweat started forming in her forehead, and the touch of Loki's cool skin was like water in the desert for her feverish body.

_Each night his fingers seem less cold, his skin less alien, his eyes more human... something is wrong with me, very wrong._

Her mind tried to scream _wrong_ but the gentle gliding of his fingertips over her sweaty skin felt so right, so perfect, that she immediately told the little voice in her brain to shut the fuck up and enjoy the ride. There was no thought, no conscience, only hunger; she was devouring his mouth as if every swallowed moan was the air she needed to stay alive. Then Loki raked his teeth over her nipples and the electric sensation travelled down, all the way to her loins, making her throw her head back and whimper like a madwoman.

The last pieces of her underwear fell to the floor, miraculously not torn to shreds, and her body was forcefully pushed against the wall; but, instead of entering her, Loki dropped to his knees and she felt his lips draw an icy trail down her stomach. Shivering, Leah let out a surprised gasp when she saw the rabid expression of the god between her legs: his eyes were narrowed to slits, and a patch of red showed on the paleness of his cheeks. She arched her back slightly and rocked her body forward, towards the flicking tongue that worshipped her with greedy licks and expert movements.

After a moment he alternated the attack on her pleasure centre with little nibbles on the inside of her thighs. It should have hurt, but it didn't, not more than the outrage Leah knew she should be feeling at the thought of being marked as his, again, but at this point nothing did matter to her anymore.

Without warning, the tension coiled up in her loins and her knees started to buckle. Only the wall behind her and the god's firm grip on her hips prevented her from collapsing on the carpet. A pair of inhumanly strong arms lifted her and threw her on the couch, facing down, and she barely had time to hold on to the arm of the couch before he settled himself between her slick folds with a low grunt, filling her all at once, claiming her flesh in a passionate rhythm.

In all her previous relationships, Leah had never been very vocal during sex. The walls of an apartment in any modern city are not exactly soundproof, and she always had thought that there was something vulgar and undignified in crying and wailing like a pornstar, even if the occasion deserved it. But Loki was reaching dark places in her mind, releasing something that could not be expressed just by moaning softly. She found herself forgetting her usual caution, and her lips moved in a constant recitation of _'oh'_ and _'yes'_ and _'god'_ and _'fuck'_. Her body responded to the adrenaline rush by wanting more and more, pushing her hips back, towards him, until it almost hurt. He was making an effort to restrain himself, barely digging his fingers into her hips, but with each thrust he sank a little deeper, moved a little faster. Buried to the hilt, growling with need every time he plunged into her. One of his hands moved to her front, finding her oversensitive bud and teasing it until she screamed and clawed furiously at the plush velvet of the couch.

The wet slapping sound of skin on skin slowed down a bit. Restraint, again.

"Relax, my love." A husky whisper, close to her ear, that instead of having the desired effect made her muscles tense even more.

_My love? Fuck, no. No way. Things said during sex don't count, everybody knows that._

The thrusts stopped. One of Loki's hands moved from her hip, fingers sliding up her spine to finally caress the side of her neck. Leah rested her cheek on the arm of the couch and sighed, craning her neck to throw a frenzied look at the man behind her.

"No, no, don't stop. Keep going. Harder!"

Loki retreated from inside her and turned her around to face him, resting his forehead against hers.

"I do not want you to get hurt. If I used even half of my full force, you could end up dead."

"I guess you never were the kind of kid that broke his toys", she panted, half mocking him.

"I dismantled them, to see how they worked... and then put them back together". Leah wasn't expecting a serious answer, nor the slow and almost delicate kiss that followed.

"And do you have me figured out yet?" she asked, teasingly.

"You are proving to be a test for my patience." Another kiss, this time on her collarbone, before he dragged his lips to the bite mark between her neck and her shoulder. A sudden fear made her shut her eyes, fists clenched in an involuntary reflex. But instead of another bite she got the oddly amplified sensation of his tongue gliding over the raised scar, barely touching it, as if he could make it fade with every caress.

Then with a firm but gentle thrust he was inside her again and she started a slow, screwing movement of her hips that brought a wave of pleasure all over her senses. She tried to wrap her legs around his waist, but Loki grabbed her and hooked one of her knees over his elbow. The new position forced her to lift her hips in an almost impossible angle, allowing him to slam deeper into her core.

The coil of white heat started building in Leah's stomach, again, and she held onto his shoulders for support, feeling how his muscles tensed every time he shoved into her. She pulled him down towards her with all her strength, leaning up to lick and kiss the length of his neck, to pull his hair, to sink her teeth into his shoulder in unison with the mad cadence of his hips, before everything went dark and her orgasm ripped her to shreds.

She felt Loki throb inside her, her muscles clenching around his length, but he didn't slow down until finally his breath hitched and he let himself go, gasping her name between gritted teeth. One more pounding thrust, two, and then the weariness of the aftermath made him collapse on top of her, his head resting on her flushed breasts.

The couch was a bit too narrow to accommodate both of them, and Leah shifted from under him and sat up, trying to find a comfortable position. Now that it was over she felt cold, exposed. Loki grasped her and settled her on his lap, wrapping his arms around her, sucking gently on the sensitive patch of skin just below her ear.

"Don't do that unless you're ready for round two", she panted. "And, if you are, you'll have to wait, because I'm drained."

Loki just smiled and placed a light kiss on her temple. "Come to the bedroom. I can wait, but I am not finished with you yet... and I know you are not finished with me either."

She raised a hand to his cheek, smooth and pale under her fingertips. "In a minute. I need to... freshen up first."

He grabbed her wrist and pressed his lips to the palm of her hand, giving her an approving nod.

Leah watched the tall, lean figure disappear down the hallway, and let out a small sigh. Not bothering to cover up she approached the bar, grabbed the bottle of Southern Comfort, unscrew the cap and brought it to her lips. It was almost empty, and she swallowed the last drops with a grimace. There was a mirror on the wall over the drinks cabinet, and she stared for a long while at her naked reflection, the faint marks of love bites on her skin, the trickle of fluid running down her inner thigh. She sighed again, put the bottle carefully back in place among the rest, and walked with silent steps towards the bedroom.


	9. The Last Midnight

**May 21. The Catskills.**

Disposing of the empty bottle had been easy. Easier than with the ones in her office, where she always ended up hiding them in her tote bag and taking them home; her silly secretary wouldn't have noticed, but the cleaning ladies always knew who stayed late at work, who had affairs with who, and, especially, what secret vices could be deduced from the suspicious items left in the garbage bins.

But Loki didn't mind if she drank as long as he didn't see her hammered, like that first night. Even so, she took care of smashing the bottle and dropping the shards in the bottom of the recycle bin. Then she carefully put the full, brand new bottle of Southern Comfort in its usual place at the bar.

Leah was alone, again. After a long night where he had been surprisingly affectionate with her, Loki had disappeared for the day, as usual. At lunchtime she had experienced a brief moment of panic when she realized how much she missed his presence. That led to the opening of the new bottle, and a third of it was consumed through the afternoon. By tea time she had made the bed, cooked dinner and done all the dishes. After that she felt so bored that she started to redecorate the bedroom (which mainly meant taking down a few paintings, moving the chairs and hiding the collection of hideous glass figurines in a drawer). When she was finished she sat on the edge of the bed, feeling a bit short of breath from all her incessant activity.

_Is this what my life is going to be from now on? Cooped up in the house by day, and 'the warrior's rest' by night?_

The clock on the bedroom wall struck ten. She hadn't realized how fast the hours had passed, and Loki had never been that late. On a hunch she hurried to the living room and saw him lounging on the carpet, reading a book, as if he didn't have a care in the world.

"The Count of Monte Cristo, again? I think you're developing a less than sane obsession with that book." She sounded irked, and she really was. A bit angry at him for being so late and letting her worry, and a lot angrier at herself for worrying, for missing him in spite of all logic.

"I like it. I was reading the passages about that slave that Dantés liberated."

"Haydée." Leah snatched the book from his hand and sat on a low ottoman, keeping her distance from him.

"Yes. He freed her from servitude and made her a princess by his side. He gave her a house, servants, jewels, everything."

Leah frowned, trying to recall the facts of the novel. "If I remember correctly, she was not allowed to leave the house after being 'liberated'. She essentially remained a slave, only with a different master. Even she referred to herself as that. Her regained freedom was nothing but an illusion... and her only value to the Count was to be an instrument of his revenge."

"At first. But in the end she was given a choice, and she chose to stay with Dantés."

"A tainted choice. He locked Haydée in a golden cage, and when he finally freed her for real, he had become her only reality. She knew nothing of the outside world... that's why she stayed." Leah flipped through the pages and gave the book back to Loki. "Anyway, why this sudden interest in a minor character from a book?"

"Sometimes books can be more real than the things we see around us." Loki returned the volume to the shelf and sat on the ottoman by her side. "Consider your situation. You were a prisoner of a dull existence and a job that made you unhappy, and I have freed you from your former life."

"Are you saying that I'm... Are you seriously comparing me to her?" Leah's body became rigid as the wave of realization hit her. "For Heaven's sake, please don't tell me that the whole point of this conversation was to establish some kind of twisted parallel between me and the invented character of a pretty princess with whom I have absolutely nothing in common. That's irrational."

"Is it so farfetched, to think that you and her can share a destiny?"

"It's completely bizarre! You haven't liberated me from anything, Loki. I had a life of my own before meeting you. I had a job, friends, hobbies... I had money and independence to do what I wanted, and I was going somewhere with my life." She started pacing across the room, throwing furtive glances at Loki to see if he really meant all those things, or if he was playing some kind of prank on her.

"Your life lacked purpose. Why do you miss that insignificant existence when you can achieve greatness by my side?"

"I never asked you for greatness. I never asked you for anything, you brought me here by force!"

None of her arguments seemed to be having any effect; he seemed bewildered, as if his deranged speech made perfect sense, as if _she_ was the one talking without reason.

"I have freed you from a mediocre life, and brought you by my side to witness my triumph over this world. All Midgard will be under my rule... and only you will share a part of my glory." He walked towards the window and assumed a power stance in front of it, looking at the night outside before turning to the astonished woman behind him. "It starts tomorrow, Leah. My army is ready and my enemies are weak."

"Army? What army? Thor said no one else on your world supported you."

"There are other worlds."

She cringed inwardly when she understood what he meant by that. "An army of aliens... Is that what you're using? A battalion of creatures from... from god knows where? Creatures that can go rogue and blow up the planet if they want to?"

"They are my allies, and you have nothing to fear from them. By this time tomorrow, the invasion will be completed."

She let herself fall on the ottoman, again, because her strength seemed to be abandoning her. "And when it is completed, when you're the supreme king of Earth, what will you do?"

"I will not be an entirely unmerciful ruler, if that is what you are implying."

Leah covered her eyes with her hands, trying to concentrate, to put her thoughts into words, to make him understand... "Loki, that's not what I mean. You can be better than Washington, Lincoln and Kennedy rolled into one once you are in a position of power, but the only thing the people will remember is how you achieved that power. They may obey your orders under coercion, but they will hate you for that."

" _You_ do not hate me."

"Are you planning to have sex with the entire population of Earth to make them like you? Because that may take a while", she said with a grimace.

He signaled to the TV set mounted on the wall. "Have you seen the state of your world, Leah? The war, the famine, the violence? All of that will end under my rule. I will give your people freedom. I will bring peace."

"An artificial peace. Brought by someone that's not one of us, that will always be perceived as an alien invader, especially if you surround yourself by a company of ETs."

"The people of Midgard will worship me as their god", he muttered between clenched teeth.

"That will be an even bigger problem. Even if you can persuade the agnostics and convert the religious ones, and there are many who will die before giving up their beliefs... Can you cure our illnesses, Loki? Each and every one of them? Can you bring the dead back to life? Can you perform miracles? Because that's exactly what people will expect from you. And if you don't deliver, you will be forgotten, like most of the absent, invisible gods that the people on this planet used to worship thousands of years ago. What do you think they will demand from a god who has a face, a name and a body? Cure a sick person and his neighbor will envy him and despise you. Make a blind man regain his sight, and he will hate you because he doesn't like the world he sees. We are selfish, we are ungrateful, that's how human beings are wired. And, eventually, they will rise against you."

"I will make use of my army to keep the peace, if I have to. Any burst of rebellion will be obliterated."

"Maybe. But for how long will this alien army of yours occupy Earth? What will happen in ten, twenty, fifty years? How many attacks can you resist?"

"I am practically invulnerable to any Midgardian weapon. No one can hurt me."

Leah looked out of the window, with her gaze lost at some point in the dark horizon. "But they can hurt _me_."

"What do you mean?" Loki stared at her, as if he didn't understand the words she was saying.

"It's only logical that the first target of any attack will be me, especially after you showed to SHIELD how ballistic you go when I'm in any danger. Unless you lock me up in a bunker forever, it won't be long before a fanatic, or a member of whatever resistance the people may organize, makes an attempt for my life. I'm not invulnerable, I'm not immortal. I can be killed... and I know I will be."

"They will not attack one of their own", he said, increasingly agitated. "I will not allow it."

"Allow it? For heaven's sake, Loki! If that waitress at the Cub Room had been a bit more insane and had carried a gun, she could have shot me in the head six times before you reacted!"

"I said I will not allow it! If anyone touches as much as a hair on your head I will rip his heart out."

"Very considerate of you, but that won't bring me back to life."

He walked to Leah and held her face between his hands, smiling at her, and in that moment she could feel all the delirious intensity of his obsession. "You do not understand yet. But you will. By this time tomorrow, after a short battle, I will be a king again. Then you shall appreciate what it means to be by my side, to be the only person in all Midgard to keep your freedom."

"Freedom?" Hearing that word in such a twisted context enraged her all of a sudden. "Loki, all you've done since I met you was take all my freedom away. Jesus Christ, you don't even let me choose my own clothes!"

"I would appreciate it if you did not swear in the name of other gods."

"To hell with all the gods in the world. And with you!"

"I have been to Hel. Several times, in fact."

"You can go back there, for all I care. Take your brother with you, and your stupid alien army, and go back to trying to conquer a throne that isn't yours!"

She had barely finished screaming to Loki's face, when the air around them seemed to thicken. Suddenly she felt like the tall ceilings and the white walls were trying to close upon her at Loki's command.

"What did you just say?" He stared down at her from his height, and his expression was so hurt that Leah wished she had bit her tongue before speaking.

"Only what your brother told me. I'm sorry but, judging by your reaction... maybe he had a point."

"Thor is not my brother, and I forbid you to mention him again! I will not be lectured by a Midgardian chit who does not know her place."

"And I will not be psychoanalyzed by a bratty god with daddy issues!" A few words too many, twice in a row. She realized that mentioning his family had been a very bad move just a millisecond after the words had spurted from her mouth. She turned around, alarmed, with the clear intention to storm out of the room, but Loki grabbed her arm in a painful grip before she could take one step.

"And what about you, Leah? What about your issues?"

"I don't have them. Let go of my arm."

"Excellent! Now let us sit down and have a glass of wine... while you tell me all about your _mother_." He didn't just say the word, he practically spat it, as if he knew exactly how much it upset her.

Leah tried to avert her eyes, but she couldn't help showing how unsettled she was by that question. "I already told you. She's dead."

"Well, I want to know more. What did she look like? What was her name?"

"That's irrelevant to you. And to me. Let me go!"

"When did you realize for the first time how much she had disappointed you?" asked Loki, holding her firmly by the shoulders, his mouth curving into a cruel snarl. "When did you start putting on that mask of coldness to hide your feelings? In what precise moment did you stop caring?"

"How the...? You know nothing of my life!"

"I know more than you imagine. Did you feel anything at all when she died? Did you experience remorse when you knew she had died alone in a hospital room? Did you go back to your town and stare at the door of her empty house, thinking how you could have done things differently? Are you still able to spare a thought for Lorna Channing once or twice a year?"

"Stop... Stop it, shut up!"

Leah's breath had become more and more agitated, until she felt her lungs were going to explode. Loki's words were stirring something that she wanted hidden and untouched; messing with her head, intruding in a past that had been almost blissfully forgotten. She opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Her fists slammed, weakly, on Loki's chest, but he didn't let her go from his grip, until she finally let out a scream of frustration.

Just when she thought she was going to faint and make an even bigger fool of herself, Loki relaxed the grip on her arms and she practically collapsed into his chest, breathing in long, painful gasps.

"What the hell was all that about?" she managed to say in a broken voice, trying to contain the outrage that bubbled inside of her.

"You are not the only one to be tormented by the past. I merely wanted to show you what we have in common", he whispered, stroking her hair and tucking her head under his chin.

"Fuck you. I mean no disrespect, but... fuck you." She stood locked in his arms for a while, until the shudders stopped. "God, this is starting to look like a contest of whose life is more screwed up."

"Believe me, if this was a contest, I would win without a doubt." He held her chin between his fingers, and his tone was once again calm, soothing, as if he was trying to pacify an agitated child, but all he managed was to irritate her more.

"Don't corner me like that again. And don't mention that woman's name again. Ever."

She slipped from Loki's arms and hurried back to the bedroom, making a lot of noise with her heels on purpose and reviewing in her mind the long list of all the profanities she had wanted, but not dared, to shout at him. The drink she had left unfinished before was still on the vanity table. The ice was completely melted, but she drank it anyway in one single gulp.

A pair of long arms wrapped around Leah's waist from behind, and she let him pull her backwards, facing the mirror, into an embrace that was just a bit too tight, a tad too needy.

"Leah..."

"I don't want to speak to you right now."

"Can we agree that there are certain things that should never be mentioned... by any of us?" She saw Loki's reflection in the vanity mirror, with that innocent, almost apologetic look that she didn't know exactly how to decipher.

"Yes, but I don't see how..."

He cuddled against her back, letting her feel his warm breath on the back of her neck, and pressed a soft, almost chaste kiss to the top of her spine. "Stop arguing with me. Stop challenging everything and everyone around you, just for a moment. Can you do that?"

"I just don't get what's so terrible about your past. Your br... I mean, Thor, told me that you were abandoned and adopted, and that's not exactly a tragedy. There are millions of adopted children here on Earth, and most of them aren't told of their real heritage until they're almost adults. They may have some issues with that, but I'm sure they don't go around the universe throwing planet-sized tantrums."

Loki raised an eyebrow. "I knew Thor would not be brave enough to tell you everything."

"Everything?"

"Step back." His voice changed all of a sudden, deeper and, somehow, colder than before.

"What?"

"Take one step back, look at me, but do not move or come close to me until I give you permission to do so."

"Loki, you're scaring me. And you hadn't been scary since yesterday, I thought we were making progress", she tried to joke, with no effect.

"If you want to know what I really am, maybe it is time to show you the monster."

Leah did what he asked, leaning on the wall behind her and and looking skeptically at the god. She didn't want to question his orders after his earlier outburst, but she was also very suspicious of this unusual request for personal space, and she had the feeling that the use of the word _monster_ wasn't exactly an exaggeration.

It started at floor level, the glacial cold, as if the floorboard beneath her was turning into stone. Then the air in the room chilled and Leah shivered in her thin dress, getting goosebumps all over her bare legs. She looked around for the source of the icy wave, until she realized it was right in front of her. Loki's features had transformed; the usually pale and smooth skin was now blue tinged and crisscrossed with strange markings. He seemed taller, bigger, but that was only because every muscle in Leah's body was contracting. Instinctively, she wrapped her arms around her, trying to protect herself from the paralyzing temperature drop and making a mental effort to stop her teeth from chattering. And yet, the sight of Loki's blue skin and the terrible cold that radiated from him weren't so bad, in comparison.

What really terrified her to death were his eyes. Red, flaming, alien... as if no sign of humanity could ever be found in them. And he just stood there, terribly still, while the red eyes roamed over her face, studying her reaction.

Leah felt like her brain had been chilled numb. She couldn't think, or speak. Her breath came in clouds of vapor in front of her. She blamed her frozen neurons for what she did next, that and the stupid curiosity that always got the best of her. Using the wall for leverage, she extended her arm and touched Loki's cheek with the tip of her finger.

The burst of pain was sharper than she expected, like a burn or the sting of a whip, a deadly sensation that traveled up her left arm and reached for her chest. She recoiled immediately with a loud yelp, tried to lean on the wall again, with little success, and fell on her knees on the floor clutching her injured hand. Only when a pair of strong hands lifted her did she realize that Loki had returned to his usual appearance.

"Are you insane? I told you not to move!"

"After all this time, you should... ah, fuck, it hurts... should know that I'm not that good at doing what I'm told." She clung to him with her good arm, trying to get back on her feet. She had the impulse of touching his face one more time, if only to prove to herself that the semblance of his frozen form had disappeared. Or to chase away the sadness that hinted to appear in Loki's eyes, the eyes that were their usual greenish-blue shade again. Anyway, it took her a while to stop shivering, even after Loki lifted her and placed her carefully on the soft duvet of the bed.

"I confess I was surprised by your reaction."

"I wanted to know if it was real or... I don't know. An illusion, like those duplicates of yourself you made in Germany."

Loki held Leah's injured hand and examined it. The tip of her pointer finger was red and starting to blister, and the rest of her hand was still abnormally cold. "It is real. What you saw is what I am by birth. A Jotun... a monster."

He sat on the bed next to her, with his eyes closed, and lifted her fingers to his lips, the lightest of touches against the tender skin. It hurt, but she trailed her fingertip along the line of his mouth and his cheeks, tracing the path of the marks that weren't there anymore. With a swift movement she shifted onto Loki's lap, straddling him, with her hands on his shoulders. No one moved or spoke for a while, until after a long moment he looked at her again.

"Loki, what you're going to do with your invasion of this planet may make you a monster. But looking like Doctor Manhattan doesn't."

"Do you really believe that? Even now that you have experienced for yourself what a simple touch of my skin can do?", he uttered, bitterly.

"There are more monsters of Earth than you'd think. And on the outside they look like normal, happy, well-adjusted people, but inside they're crippled and rotten. At least you've been honest with me, and that's enough... enough to not make me judge you." She ran her fingers over his forehead, trying to brush away the anguished look in his eyes. Loki breathed in a deep sigh, and his lips finally curved in a slow smile.

"How do you manage to surprise me over and over again, woman?" he growled close to her ear. His right hand crept over Leah's leg, tickling the back of her knee before gathering the folds of her skirt up to her thigh.

"Get your hand off there", she pouted, shaking her head. "If you want make up sex after all those awful things you said to me before, you're going to have to work for it."

"This may be the last night we spend together, Leah."

"Do you really have doubts about your fantabulous invasion, or is this just emotional blackmail to get into my panties?"

Her question was rewarded with a playful smile. "Even the best laid plans can fail."

"Then maybe I should go to bed", she muttered, wiggling on his lap as if she wanted to get up, "while you return to wherever you go every day and tweak those plans to perfection."

"No. Stay with me." His voice was soft, almost a whisper, as if he was asking gently instead of giving her an order.

"Would it kill you to say 'please', only once?"

"Stay", he repeated. He placed a hand on the small of Leah's back and run his fingers up her spine, pulling her tighter into his frame, and she let her body go limp in his arms. They stayed like that, lost in a fugitive sense of bliss, unwilling to let go of the other's embrace, to think of what the next day could bring. Comforting one another with the closeness of their bodies. Loki ghosted his lips over her mouth and her neck once and again, muttering something unintelligible against her lips, and she wrapped her arms around him and fell into a sort of slumber where the only real things were his touch, his scent, the steady rhythm of his breath. Only when she was almost on the edge of sleep she recognized the word he was whispering, but this time she had no strength or will to fight against its meaning.

"Mine."

The clock on the wall struck twelve.


	10. Chromolume #7

**May 22. The Catskills.**

Birds sing at dawn to proclaim their territories, to tell neighboring birds that they have survived the night and are still in residence. The thick forest that surrounded Loki's hideout had an abundant population of avian creatures, whose chirping, just before sunrise, was loud enough to wake up the heaviest of sleepers. Leah used to love those brief moments between sleep and waking state, when her only reality was the soft bed beneath her, and the everyday troubles (work deadlines, annoying colleagues, silly ex-boyfriends…) were many miles away from her mind.

It took her a few seconds to remember that her bed was not _her_ bed, that she wasn't in her Stuttgart apartment, that her life had been turned upside down in just a week's time. Stifling a sleepy groan, she extended her arm towards the empty space beside her; the space left every morning when Loki disappeared at dawn to go the Devil knew where.

Only it wasn't empty this time. Her fingers brushed against the smooth skin and taut muscle of her lover's arm, and she immediately drew her hand back, not wanting to wake him up when she had a unique chance to observe him in his sleep. He looked young, peaceful, perfectly relaxed... a striking contrast with his usual tension and poise. The faint lines around his eyes had become practically invisible, and the rising and falling of his chest, almost in slow-motion, was hypnotic.

Trying not to startle him, Leah raised herself up on one arm, taking in his features. She had never noticed how delicate his lips looked when they weren't pressed in a tight line, or the way his long dark eyelashes contrasted with the paleness of his cheeks.

_How beautiful you look when you're not trying to take over the world..._

Her hands fleeted over Loki's face, and she wondered how he would react to being woken up without warning. Not in a friendly way, obviously... he looked like the kind of man that would sleep with a knife under his pillow. Even so, she couldn't help herself and planted a soft, light kiss on the corner of Loki's mouth...

... and found herself promptly immobilized under the god's body, with her arms pinned above her head and a pair of green, hungry eyes fixed on her.

"Are you trying to surprise me, Leah? A futile attempt, to say the least."

"Good morning to you, too", she moaned. A quick glance to her watch, that she still refused to take off, even in bed, confirmed that it was barely six in the morning. "How can you be so... so alert? The sun hasn't come up yet."

"I have escaped many a dangerous situation by being always vigilant. I do not require the same amount of sleep than your mortal kind and other lesser beings."

"Lesser beings?" she repeated, in a mocking outraged tone _. "_ You're the most insufferable man I've ever met."

"God."

"Whatever", she conceded with a sigh. "Now that you're awake, are you hungry?"

"Hungry. Thirsty. Starving. Only for you", he smirked, gazing over the parts of her body that weren't concealed under the sheets.

"That sounds great, but it's not going to be as fun as it should unless I can recover the use of my hands," she said, wiggling her fingers and making an unsuccessful effort to free her arms from his steel grip. The pressure of Loki's hands on her wrists didn't diminish.

"Nevertheless, it would be so tempting to tie you to the bed and have you like this... completely at my mercy."

"I'm always at your mercy, Loki, every moment of every day, tied up or not. And I told you I've never liked that kind of kinky games."

He rolled his eyes and released her, dragging his lithe fingers down the skin of her arm and trailing soft, fleeting touches along her ribcage. That had an unintended side effect, because in her half-awake state Leah was very ticklish, and she tried to repress a giggle.

"Now you are the one being insufferable. My attentions are no laughing matter."

"Try touching me in a different place… and see if I laugh or not."

"Remind me again why do I allow you to be so impertinent."

"Because you can't resist me when I do this", she muttered, raking her nails against the god's chest and then sliding her hand lower, much lower, while she pressed her lips against his. Her palm found the male flesh and started caressing him with languid strokes. Loki nibbled at her neck, delicately at first and then with more pressure as when she adjusted her pace to faster strokes and his hips jerked, involuntarily, into her hand.

That instinctive response made her conceal a wicked smile, and she started kissing a trail down his torso, finally leaning down and taking him in her mouth, moving up and down his length several times, teasing, keeping the pace deliberately slow until his breath became rushed, coming out in short gasps.

"Stop. Now", he said, with a low growl that hid a barely veiled command.

"Why, am I doing it wrong? I've never had any complaints before..."

"Are you seeking revenge for last night, woman? According to the very… ah… colorful string of expletives that came out of that lovely mouth several times, I did not leave you indifferent... or unsatisfied."

Leah lifted her face from his lap, but she couldn't quite see Loki's face in the dim grey light. However, she heard the smile in his tone and felt the muscles in his abdomen tighten under her touch. Good sign.

"Well, you kept me occupied till all hours, which means this _lesser_ _mortal_ has had very little sleep... But I'm guessing those moans mean that you didn't have enough of me."

He reacted with a short staccato of a laugh. "Oh, it would take me hundreds of years to have enough of you."

"Careful with what you say, conqueror of worlds. That sounded almost romantic."

She let out a startled gasp when Loki grabbed her by the arms and pressed her again into the mattress. He crawled over her and grasped a fistful of her hair, and Leah found herself unable to move once more, feeling his warm breath against her lips.

"Romance is for wandering minstrels and kitchen wenches. You are important to me", he whispered, holding her face in his hands as his lips touched hers. "And this 'conqueror of worlds', as you call me, wants to ride into battle today with the memory of your embrace."

_Important. Important...? Curious choice of words._

Leah's line of thought was interrupted by the attack of Loki's mouth on her already ravaged neck, and her mind became blank when he teased her lips with a flick of his tongue, only stopping to bite her just hard enough to startle her a little, to make her breath hitch. He was playing with her, same as she had done with him a moment before, enjoying her little whimpers when he lowered his hand to her other set of lips and slipped a finger into her wet heat.

Godly games at ungodly hours.

Leah bit her bottom lip and rocked her hips against the Asgardian's hand. There were no more words after the surprising declaration of her importance, not that it mattered because Loki immediately added a second finger and she found herself unable to think of anything except his touch. His movements were as controlled and graceful as usual, but there was an urgency in the way his mouth closed on hers, a savage desperation that reminded her of the possibility of that being their last moment together.

She tangled her hands in his hair, anchoring her body against his, tipping her head back when he found her breasts and took a nipple between his teeth, sending a jolt of electricity down her spine. Loki moved his body between his lover's thighs, her parted legs open for him, and Leah saw him flash one of his maddening, sly smiles before he shoved himself inside, roughly, in a single powerful stroke. His face was buried in the crook of her neck and he nibbled at the soft skin of her throat, making the woman under him shiver at the contrast of his cold lips on her heated flesh.

It didn't take him long to pick up a fast pace, gripping her hips with both hands, anchoring her body to the mattress below them in an almost frantic effort to sink deeper into her flesh. Lea's hips met him mid-thrust, welcoming him, allowing him to bring her to the brink of release.

_As if there was no tomorrow... and that's the point, there probably isn't._

She was on the edge of an explosive climax, and when Loki slid in one more time, all the while dragging that skilled tongue along the skin between her breasts, she felt him twitch and pulse inside her, his sudden release like a hot flash that ran through her limbs. A high-pitched whine marked her own point of no return and her whole body shook, arched off the bed, and finally went slack in his arms.

He continued nuzzling at her neck for a while, as if he didn't want to let go, but Leah's exhaustion and lack of sleep was taking over her, and she could barely keep her eyes open.

"I... Sleep...?" she cooed softly, unable to form a complete sentence.

"Yes. Sleep now. We will meet again soon after the battle", Loki whispered, reaching for the blanket that had fallen to the floor at some point in the night and covering her with it.

"You know I can't, in good conscience, wish you good luck…"

"Insolent until the end. Farewell, lovely Leah."

She heard him leave the room and close the door behind him before falling into a deep slumber without dreams.

* * *

 _**Devil came to me** _  
_**and he said: I know what you need** _  
_**devil came to me** _  
_**and he said you just follow me** _

**_This is the end but I'm not surprised_ **  
**_you will burn in hell_ **  
**_do you know why…?_ **

The alarm from Leah's cell phone blasted her out of her sleep at full volume. She instinctively extended her hand to the night stand and stopped it, before realizing that her phone had been dead for several days.

But there it was, full charged and working with a normality that seemed absurd after days of silence and isolation. She sat up, holding the device in her hand and wondering how it could have been recharged on its own. The numbers on the screen told her that it was noon. Leah blinked several times, trying to decide if it was a hallucination or a dream, and after a moment she jumped out of bed, picked her underwear from the floor and ran to the living room.

_That's it, I'm seeing things. I've finally gone insane._

Something was definitely not right. On one of the chairs laid the clothes she had been wearing the day of her kidnapping: the navy blue suit, white shirt and sensible heels that she always wore to work when she had an important meeting. They had been cleaned and ironed, and her bag was on the floor next to them.

Something clicked in her brain, a hunch, and she rushed towards the main door of the house, where she found further proof that she wasn't hallucinating.

The door was unlocked... no, not only unlocked, it was ajar, and a large manila envelope was taped to its metallic surface. Leah opened it, hands shaking, and tried to make sense of its contents: the keys of a BMW, a passport - _her_ passport, the one that should have been in a drawer of her flat in Stuttgart -, a plane ticket to California, a reservation for a suite on the Beverly Hills Hotel, and a letter written on something that looked like parchment.

**_'Take the aeroplane to that city and wait for me there. Do not stay in the house. Do not, under any circumstance, go to New York.'_ **

That was it. No heading, no signature, but the calligraphy on the letter was strange and old-fashioned, and the command unmistakably clear. Leah took a deep breath, sat on the floor and re-read Loki's note a few times. That message didn't make sense with what he had told her that same morning, making it sound like he had a clear, easy victory in sight. She checked the plane ticket and saw that she had to be at the airport in less than four hours. Leah didn't know her exact location, but from what she remembered from her Geography lessons, it would take her more than two hours to drive from the mountains to New Jersey. That left her very little time to react.

Why the haste? Why make her go into hiding on the other side of the country, unless...?

 _Unless he thinks he's going to be defeated. That's why he wants me safely tucked away..._ _He knows he's not going to make it._

Whether she intended to follow Loki's instructions or not, it was clear that she had to leave the house, because if her phone was working it meant that SHIELD, or the police, would be able to track her using the GPS locator. After the quickest shower of her life and a cup of reheated coffee she gathered her belongings, feeling more and more agitated as the minutes ticked by.

There were three very expensive cars in the garage: the black BMW, parked next to the door, a Mercedes and a Porsche. Not exactly a poor man's fleet.

_He could have left me the keys to the Porsche, I've never driven one of those. Killjoy._

Leah threw the large envelope into her handbag and got inside the BMW. After familiarizing herself with the controls, she plotted the fastest route towards the Newark Liberty Airport.

_There are six freaking airports in New York and its surroundings. Six. And he had to choose Newark._

Thinking of her home town wasn't exactly a pleasant exercise, and Leah grasped the wheel and drew several long breaths to calm her nerves before starting the engine. She had never seen the exterior of the house, of course, and right before crossing the outer gate she paused and looked back. It was an impressive mix of a mansion and a fortress, much bigger than the wing where she and Loki had been staying during the previous week. There was a security cabin beside the gate, but it was deserted.

With two hours of driving in front of her, she concentrated on the directions provided by the car's GPS screen. First there were a few miles through barely paved roads, until she reached the Interstate 87, and then a long, boring hundred miles, heading towards New Jersey. The traffic was not as bad as she had expected, but she kept looking in the rearview mirror, expecting a fleet of police cars, or maybe a helicopter, to appear in any moment. They didn't, and by two in the afternoon she finally had the Garden Parkway exit in sight.

Just twenty more miles to the airport. That was it, the moment where she removed herself from danger, from the destruction that was bound to fall over New York and, possibly, over the whole East Coast.

Leah slowed down the car and forced herself to breathe calmly, working hard to keep her eyes fixed on the road and to stop the contradicting thoughts that went through her mind like a whirlpool.

_I have my passport with me, and my credit cards. I can take a different plane back to Europe, or South America, or...  
_

The tires screeched when she swerved and stomped on the gas pedal, making the car lurch forward as it took the highway exit, so fast that Leah barely reached to read the sign on the side of the road. She didn't need to anyway, she knew exactly where she was going: New Jersey 4 East.

All the way to New York.

* * *

The traffic on the Bridge was starting to get worse, with a long caravan of cars forming around her, but most of the trouble was in the lanes that led out of the city.

_The people have started to abandon ship. Will it be over before I arrive?_

That arose another pressing question… arrive where? There wasn't exactly a designated battlefield in New York, or a strategic place where one could expect an attack. But now she could see the first signs of the fight: a couple of explosions in the distance, towards the Grand Central area, and an growing number of police officers trying to put some order into the jammed streets.

Leah couldn't repress an alarmed cry at the sight of the first aliens. The motherfuckers were airborne, flying over the streets in some sort of hovercraft motorcycle. They were big, humanoid shaped and incredibly fast, and Leah couldn't see if they were metallic androids or creatures wearing some sort of armor. A child started to cry in the car beside hers, and then all of a sudden the crowd exploded into a collective panic. People started leaving their cars in the middle of the street, and she found the way blocked in the middle of Park Avenue. She grabbed her bag and Loki's letter and got out of the car, trying not to be dragged along the crowd.

She discovered that finding one's way in a mayhem is surprisingly easy if, instead of escaping the chaos, you go straight into it. No one tries to stop you. You just have to observe in what direction everyone is running and go for the opposite way, towards the source of the explosions and the screams. Towards the battle.

The flying aliens were now firing some kind of explosive shots of energy, and several of them hit the abandoned cars, starting a row of fires. But, after several minutes trying to run in the middle of a burning city, the fires themselves were not so bad. No, the worse part was the unmistakable smell of charred flesh that started invading the back or her throat. The physical sign that someone, maybe many someones, were injured, burning, dying… and she still had no idea where to go. Or why she was going there instead of being safely transported to the sunny California.

The heat from the explosions was so intense that several windows of the surrounding buildings started to break, throwing shards of glass in all directions. One of them hit Leah's arm, and she hissed in pain, observing how her white shirt became stained with blood. Fortunately, the cut wasn't deep, but with every step she took she was feeling more and more disoriented and exhausted.

And now there was something else appearing out of a hole in the sky, a metallic Leviathan so huge and menacing that Leah stopped breathing for a moment. The alien thing hovered above the ground, circling a small area over the buildings, and Leah finally knew where she was going.

To the epicenter of the war zone, the place that had been the scenario of countless society parties and fundraising galas, the most outrageously flashy skyscraper in the whole world.

200 Park Avenue.

The Stark Tower Complex.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm terribly sorry for the delay in publishing this chapter! I know it ends in the middle of the battle, but the next one is already half written, and I'll post it as soon as I can.  
> Feedback is always appreciated. Thank you for reading!
> 
> The melody from the alarm of Leah's cellphone is "Devil Came To Me" by Dover:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-fHvPzqT6Y


	11. I Have the Funniest Feeling

_IN CASE OF AN EMERGENCY, USE THE STAIRS_

Leah stared at the sign that hung on the wall of the elevator, wondering how many more rules and regulations she would have to break to reach the top of Stark Tower. As the buttons with the floor numbers lit up, she felt a bit dizzy. Partly because of the blood loss, and partly for fear that the power would go out in any moment, leaving her trapped. She knew she should have taken the stairs, but she didn't have the strength to climb ninety floors, and it was getting harder and harder to use her injured left arm.

_Loki is up there. He has to be... I saw him fighting with his brother. All my stupid little trip to New York will have been for nothing if I can't get to him._

Her pulse accelerated, and she wiped the cold sweat of her palms on her already dirty and wrinkled skirt. She reached her destination at last, on the eighty-eight floor, and the doors opened into a large corridor that led to a set of stairs. There was another elevator, a private one, leading to the penthouse, but it had a combination lock and she didn't have the time to guess the code. As she started to climb the stairs, the faint beeping noise of an alarm resonated around her, and a mechanical voice started repeating a cold, lifeless mantra:

"WARNING - AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY - WARNING"

"A bit too late for that, don't you think?" she snickered bitterly, at no one in particular, ignoring the automated message.

When she finally reached the top she was breathless, stumbling through the clouds of smoke and concrete dust that polluted the air. She could hear the noise of the battle again, outside, and also a couple of explosions that shook the walls of the building and reminded her of the pulsing headache that was beginning to build up behind her eyes.

And another voice, this one coming from within her, reminding her how much she needed a drink...

Coughing to clear the dust from her throat, Leah stepped into the huge penthouse. What was left of it, anyway. All around her there were signs of a terrible fight: part of the ceiling was demolished, and the floors of polished stone appeared covered in bits of metal and broken glass. Then she saw it again, in the sky right above her. The portal.

Flying aliens kept pouring from it in waves, like a swarm of locusts. From her high position Leah tried to look at the void behind them, but there was nothing to see. Not a hole, or a dark space, just... nothing. It was impossible to fix one's eyes on it without having the sensation of going blind, and she had to blink several times to avoid the feeling of nausea and disorientation that was creeping into her. After a few seconds she regained her senses and noticed that the penthouse was deserted.

No Loki. No Thor. Nothing.

If her unlikely god had ever been there, he had taken his fight someplace else. Or maybe he was already dead, buried under a pile of stone and bricks somewhere in the half-destroyed city. All she could do was attempt to get to the street again or stay and wait for her own death, either by alien fire or by the building being demolished by the continuing explosions.

_I won't die hiding like a rat. If Loki's still out there, maybe..._

She couldn't bring herself to finish the thought, but in the middle of her despair she still believed she would be able to talk some sense into him, to persuade him to stop the unstoppable.

Halfway through the exit she noticed the bar. She also noticed the bottle of Southern Comfort just in the middle of the upper shelf, and the clenching feeling on her stomach that was getting harder and harder to ignore. One drink, just one drink and she would have the courage to cover the distance between her and the exit door.

But sometimes the Universe has other plans and, right before she could unscrew the bottle cap, a figure crashed through the penthouse's balcony, pulverizing the windows, rolling on the floor and stopping against the back wall.

Loki had finally made his entrance, and it didn't look good.

Behind the bar, Leah's strength had finally abandoned her and she fell to her knees, whimpering when the bits of broken glass pierced her stockings and dug into her flesh. Distracted by the pain, she crawled towards a corner. She heard Loki shouting at someone, but the words escaped her understanding, and she tried to gain leverage on the back wall and stand up to see who was the god's opponent.

_Oh, please, let it be Thor. If it's him, I still can stop this._

But it wasn't Thor, and nothing could have prepared her for the vision that greeted her on the opposite side of the penthouse. In fact, her brain refused to register it for a second or two, while all the monsters that had ever featured on her childhood nightmares (not many, because she knew from a very young age that the only real terrors are the ones that happen in the light of day) took form in front of her, in the shape of a menacing green being.

When the monster started beating Loki, thrashing him around once and again like a wet rag, sending bits of rubble and broken marble in all directions, she tried to scream. But her voice caught in her throat, paralyzed by the terror of seeing her lover mashed to a pulp by the huge simian-like creature. On the second try she finally managed to utter a weak, broken cry, but by then the monster had stopped and Loki's mangled body lay on the floor, in a shallow hole carved by his own impact.

Fallen. Broken... Dead?

And now the creature had seen her.

Leah took a small, hesitant step towards the green behemoth. Her conscious mind wanted to run past the giant, run to Loki, but she was also fighting the primitive part of her brain, the one that told her to hide and to run for her life. The creature looked at her from its height and tilted his head to the side, as if it was assessing if the small, frightened woman was dangerous enough to be worthy of his rage. And she just stood there, frozen, waiting for the final, deathly blow, and at the same time hoping to see a glimpse of intelligence in the eyes of the green brute, to appeal to its mercy... if monsters could have mercy.

A solid thump echoed through the room. Then another. The monstrous being was walking away, heading for the ruined balcony, where it disappeared from sight. With the blood pounding in her ears, Leah finally gathered herself and managed to run towards the fallen god.

She had expected to find only a bloody mass, a disfigured shadow of the man that once had been almost too beautiful to look at. But the pair of blue-green eyes that finally noticed her seemed very much alive, and the god's chest raised and lowered, slowly, with a painful wheezing sound, as if every breath he took could be the last. There was barely an inch of his skin without bruises or cuts, including a deep gash on his lower lip. And his hands... his elegant hands were now dirty, battered, with the knuckles red and swollen.

Leah saw a drop of water fall on the back of Loki's hand, and only then she realized she was crying. The tears that she had refused to shed for so many years were streaming down her face, all at once. All the times she had clenched her teeth and moved on, all the pain she had ignored, the sorrow she had drowned in the bottom of a bottle came back to her, and she wasn't strong enough to fight them anymore.

"I distinctly remember forbidding you to follow me."

Loki's voice sounded strange, cracked, and another round of uncontrollable sobs took over Leah before she could calm herself down enough to speak.

"Don't move! Your back may be broken... Oh, God... I thought..."

"You thought I was dead. You believed that beast had slain me, and were preparing to mourn me."

"No one can survive something like that."

"Your lack of faith continues to be appalling, Leah." There was a tone of gentle chiding on his voice, telling her off for daring to think, even for a second, that he could be so weak, so... mortal.

She heard herself laughing, a hysteric, desperate sound between the tears that kept pouring. Even half dead, he could still be as arrogant as ever.

With a painful grunt, Loki managed to lift his head and sit up, slowly, shedding little bits of dust from his battered armor as he extracted himself from the hollow that had almost became his grave. Leah still couldn't believe he was able to move, and even less bring herself to touch him. But his gaze was becoming more focused and he was the one who finally raised a hand to the sleeve of her blood-stained shirt, frowning at the sight. She flinched, but her body felt so numb that the pain was almost a distant memory.

"You are bleeding. Why are you bleeding?"

"I cut my arm with a broken glass... I don't know if you've noticed, but your alien friends are currently destroying Manhattan."

"I was not expecting it to be this way. I asked for an army, not a herd of beasts!", he spat, turning to look outside for a moment, at the battle that still continued on the streets and in the sky around them.

"Well, yes, invasions can be very uncivilized sometimes."

Loki closed his eyes and breathed a heavy sigh. "There will be no invasion, Leah. I have been defeated... and I am so tired."

She had never imagined a situation where he could appear so weak, so helpless. Even knowing that the destruction outside was his fault, that the fight wasn't over and they could all still be killed, she let him lean against her chest, wrapping her good arm around him. They sat in silence for a while, ignoring the noises of the world that was crumbling around them, until Loki spoke again.

"Why did you follow me here?"

"I don't know."

"Leah. Answer the question." He brought his hand to her face, dirty and stained with tears, and brushed his thumb over her lips, as if trying to coax an answer out of them.

It hadn't been a lie, she couldn't lie to him anymore. But the simple effort to think, to elaborate a logical reply, was simply too much for her.

"What do you want me to say, Loki? We were good together... It was good, but it was just a moment, right? It was always going to be a moment... and now it's over."

His fingers tensed and curled around her cheek, and his eyes glowed with longing and a hint of his old delusions of grandeur.

"I would have put a crown on your head."

"A crown that I didn't want."

"I never intended to cause you any harm. Remember what I told you this morning."

That morning. Leah tried to recall what he had said, something about her importance, on a conversation that now seemed so far away as if it had taken place many months before. And it made her angry, all of a sudden, to think of how she had let herself fall into that situation, how she had allowed him to creep into her mind so easily.

"Bullshit. You just saw something you wanted and you took it... It could have been anyone else."

"No. It could only have been you. Believe that, at least."

He kissed her quickly, moving against her mouth with a disarming strength he wasn't supposed to have anymore, and a touch of wetness on her cheek made her realize she was tearing up again.

"You still don't understand how completely you've fucked up my life, do you?" Leah's voice was barely a crushed whisper, weary from the pain, the crying, the lack of sleep. She held her breath, waiting for an answer, and her attention drifted to the sound of the fighting outside, until she realized everything had gone unusually quiet. The noises outside were gone... and the portal, the alien invaders, everything had vanished while they were talking, leaving only an ominous silence.

Loki's hand shivered as he drew her towards his lips, tenderly, one last time. The last of all times.

"They are coming, Leah. Remember me."

_As if I could ever forget._

She heard a rustle behind her; the green monster was back, with reinforcements. Blinking against the sunlight, Leah saw a grim looking Thor, Tony Stark in his mechanical suit, and the other uniform clad heroes in different stages of disarray, all of them throwing very hateful looks at the fallen god.

"Step away from that man, please, ma'am", said the man with the star spangled shield. "He's dangerous."

The polite request, so out of place, made Leah snicker with a humorless laugh before a new wave of gut-wrenching sobs shook her body. At the end of her rope, she barely registered the presence of several more people around her, the weight of an ugly shock blanket on her shoulders, a chorus of worried and friendly voices that were trying to make her stand up, to drive her away from Loki.

"Miss Channing, I am a doctor. I need you to come with me, you require medical attention..."

"Miss Channing, I'm Agent Rollins, we're going to get you to safety..."

"Miss Channing..."

"Get her out of here already, for fuck's sake!" ordered a bewildered Tony Stark. The armored man looked at Loki and then back at her, and there was a bit of sadness in his voice, a sympathy that she didn't expect from someone on the side of the heroes.

"I'm sorry, doll. It's over."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize if this chapter looks a bit uninspired. I don't particularly enjoy writing scenes that have appeared on the movie, because I hate repeating movie dialogue, so my only option is trying to find a different approach to something that has already been written, brilliantly, by none other than Joss Whedon... and that's awfully hard.


	12. Too Many Mornings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's not a lot of Loki on this chapter. Sorry!

**June 13. SHIELD's West Coast Operations Base. 13 PM.  
**

Doctor Patience Wade, clearance level five, heard the security door close behind her with a distinct whooshing sound, not unlike the frustrated sigh she had just let out. She was around sixty years of age; tall and lanky, her long face and benevolent expression gave her a certain likeness to a horse. She was also an outstanding therapist who had been on SHIELD's payroll for more than thirty years, but Patient A12 was proving to be one of the few complete failures of her long career.

Adjusting her glasses over her nose, she entered the control room. The medical wing of the base was built in a circular shape, with a central medical lab full of computers and diverse equipment, surrounded by a corridor that opened to an operating room (that had never been used) and a series of large, modern, aseptic rooms. Only one of them was occupied, now that Dr. Selvig's mind had proved to be beyond reach and he had been shipped out to a psychiatric hospital. The remaining patient was not exactly unstable, or ill. She wasn't exactly healthy either, and Dr. Wade was starting to worry, something quite unusual in her.

To make things worse, Tony Stark had taken a liking to visiting the medical facility, and Dr. Wade's orders were to let him go wherever he wanted (clearance level undisclosed), as long as he didn't disturb the peace or tried to use the equipment for his own experiments. He was in the lab, shifting through a pile of medical records, when Dr. Wade returned from another unsuccessful therapy session. Ignoring him, she collapsed into a chair and started picking at a loose button of her white lab coat.

"Has your namesake patience run out yet, Doctor?"

"Almost, Mr. Stark. At this pace I won't be able to get any results before the quarantine period ends." She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes, ruining her already smudged eyeliner. "I've seen the patient every day for the last three weeks, almost since the day she got here, and she's as uncooperative as a stubborn teenager."

"It can't be that bad, Doc", mused Tony, whose attention was centered on crafting an origami crane out of a Rorschach test sheet. "There must be some way to get to her."

"If she keeps refusing therapy, there's not much I can do. She's exactly in the same state she was the day she arrived: uncooperative, unresponsive, depressed." The older woman's face deflated a bit, which reinforced her equine resemblance. "I'm not allowed to prescribe her any medication during the quarantine, and even if I could I'm not sure she would take it, unless by force."

"Force is out of the question, Doctor. She's a victim, not a criminal, and she's being held here, temporarily, for her own safety."

"All I'm getting from her, session after session, are the bare facts. The facts that I already know, because she told everything to the agents that debriefed her. But as soon as I try to discuss her thoughts or her feelings, she closes up and gets completely detached from reality. I've tried everything I know, nothing's working... Well, at least she's eating a bit more now."

The origami crane was crumpled into a ball of ink-spotted paper. "What do you mean?"

"She was in a terrible state when she got here. During the first week she cried night and day and she hardly slept. Then she didn't get out of bed for three days straight, and ate just the bare minimum for staying alive... I'm not an endocrine specialist, but she's lost weight. At this stage the only thing I can trust is my instinct, and my instinct tells me that being locked up here isn't doing her any good."

"You know why she's here, Doctor P."

"Yes, of course. Contact with an alien entity... but my pathologist colleagues have found nothing wrong with her health. She hasn't exactly sprouted wings or turned into a little green Martian, for goodness' sake!" The woman got up from her chair and paced across the room, nervously. "I'm going to send Director Fury a recommendation to end her quarantine a week before scheduled... it's either that or my resignation letter."

"Whatever she has, it must be contagious, Doc... You're being way overdramatic. Maybe what she needs is a friend, not a therapist."

"Overdramatic?", asked the woman, looking slightly miffed. "Well, you're welcome to give it a try, Mr. Stark. As long as it doesn't interfere with her scheduled therapy sessions - and at this point not even an earthquake could make them more useless than they are - you having a chat with her can't do much harm."

Tony Stark watched Dr. Wade pick up her papers and leave, her comfy shoes barely making any noise as she marched down the corridor.

* * *

The object of the conversation between the therapist and the millionaire was huddled on her bed, almost asleep despite it being lunch time. She heard the door open and close, but she didn't even open her eyes. It had become part of her routine, the checks. Every thirty minutes, with military precision, a nurse or a SHIELD agent would stick his head in the room to see if everything was in order. There were surveillance cameras everywhere, of course, so it was just an extra precaution, a reminder from past times when hidden cameras didn't exist, a minor nuisance that sliced the time in tiny half-hour bits.

The agents normally said _'Checks'_ and left immediately. The nurses were a bit more talkative, and sometimes they asked how she was doing. During the first week Leah answered with her best fake smile and a few muttered words. By the second week her answers had changed to a moan or a head inclination, and for the past few days she had just been ignoring everybody.

Every day time seemed to be passing slower. Her perceptions and reflexes were dulled by the tedious routine of waking up and doing nothing until the good Doctor Wade arrived and tried to get her out of her shell. The decoration didn't help much: the room assigned to her was comfortable, spacious, aseptic, unbearably white. The few pitiful attempts at interior design (a picture hanging on the wall, a shelf with books, a fluffy duvet on the bed) couldn't hide the fact that it was a poorly disguised hospital room. In a place like that, the passing of time had a special kind of viscosity, as if life was bleeding out of her in carefully measured segments, thirty minutes at a time.

Her only attempts at communication that day had been asking the nurse assigned to the morning checks to turn up the heating, and thanking her when she came back with her lunch tray, that remained practically untouched on the nightstand.

That was the scenery Tony Stark was greeted with. The illumination of the room had been lowered to a depressing semi-darkness, and he turned the rheostat all the way up, revealing the unpleasant whiteness of the walls and the floor.

"Time to wake up, doll."

Leah jumped off the bed and covered her eyes with her hand. During the past few days she had kept the lights down, almost to a funeral level, and the sudden burst of clarity was almost painful.

"Well, I'm glad to see another human being... And no, before you ask, secret agents and medical people don't count as human."

Tony turned a chair around and sat down, with his arms crossed over the back. "Your food has gone cold."

"It's a chicken breast with kale salad and a rice pudding. It's as insipid now as it was when they brought it."

"You could have asked for something else. It's not exactly haute cuisine, but since you're the only guest of this five star hotel, I'm sure the cook can accommodate you."

"I don't care." Leah picked up the fork and pushed an olive around the plate. "Are you here to debrief me again, Stark? Will someone finally tell me what are the charges against me?"

"Charges? Apart from a textbook case of Stockholm Syndrome, the only thing I would charge you with would be Excessive Sulking, and if that was a crime every teenager in the world would be in jail." He repositioned himself and rested his chin on the back of the chair. "You're here for purely medical reasons, because you have been in contact with the alien rockstar. But your therapist has already told you that."

"I hate shrinks. I've hated them since high school, and I'll be dead before I trust any of them."

"That's not fair. I just had a lovely chat with Doctor Horseface, she's a very nice woman and you're making her professional life very difficult."

The nickname made Leah smile half a millimeter.

"If I'm not accused of anything, then why are you here?"

"I thought you could use a friend."

"We're not that good friends. Usually, when I want to do some girly bonding I go shopping with my gay Pilates instructor, and you're none of those things. Look... is there any way I can get a drink? I really, _really_ need one. You must have that flask of yours somewhere."

"No alcohol on the premises, sorry. I'm trying to get off the stuff myself."

"Really? When did you get so self-righteous?"

"Since I almost died trying to close a giant hole in the sky of Manhattan." He closed his eyes and sighed, as if trying to shake a bad memory. "Besides... you've been walking the line between simply drinking a lot and being a full time alcoholic. You're not quite there yet, but I've seen the way you drink and how much, and it reminded me too much of myself."

Leah resumed her curling position on the bed, and said nothing.

"And, as you can see, there are no support groups around, no twelve steps to follow. While you're here, it's cold turkey or nothing." He looked at the figure on the bed, thinner and paler than he remembered. "Honey, I'm not very fond of shrinks myself, so I'm not going to tell you what to do with your therapy sessions... but you need to eat something or you'll disappear. Or make a career in modeling, and neither of those options is very healthy."

She sat up, clutching the pillow with nervous hands.

"What I need is to know when I'm going to get out of here."

"The scheduled quarantine is forty days, but Dr. Infinite Patience is going to recommend that they let you out a bit sooner."

"Good. I'm going insane in here, Stark. I wasn't crazy when I got here, but every day everything seems more... I don't know. Unreal. I'm going mad with boredom, I feel like I'm trapped inside my own head, and right now it's not a pretty place to be. At least now they've let you in here... at least today I have somebody to talk to." She fidgeted with the fabric of her sheets, curling and uncurling her fingers around a loose thread.

"Neither me nor any of the others want to keep you here a moment more than necessary. I can talk to Fury, try to persuade him to let you go before you starve yourself to death. But you need to take care of yourself. Steve and the others are worried about you."

She let out a mirthless laugh. "Why would any of your friends from the Superhero League have any sympathy for me?"

"Let's see... the other day I overheard Hawkeye telling Fury that it was probably worse having Loki in your bed than having him in your head. And he wasn't joking."

"I just _love_ to have my sex life discussed by people I don't even know."

"Thor adored you, for the simple reason that you were with his brother. The day he left he was this close to calling you 'sister' during breakfast. And the Cap has been ranting about how, and I quote literally, _it's unfair that a good, hard working American girl has to be detained here just for having been the victim of_..."

"I'm not a victim", she managed to say before a series of violent sneezes shook her.

"Whatever you say, doll. Gesundheit."

"Loki's gone, right?" Leah asked, in a monotone voice. "They are both gone forever. Doctor Wade won't tell me anything... all she does is ask silly questions, but I've seen how she looks at me, as if I was twelve and my first crush had just moved to a different school."

"To be completely honest, you're kind of acting like a twelve year old."

"Go fuck yourself."

The increasingly impatient millionaire got up and walked towards the door, but in the last moment he turned back to the moping woman on the bed.

"Where are your legendary balls, Leah?"

"What?" She sat up again and tried to blink her tears away.

"Your guts, your mindblowing intelligence! You know, SHIELD interviewed a few of your colleagues the day after you were kidnapped. I've seen the files, and some of the adjectives I read on them were _cunning_ , _ruthless_ , _brilliant_." He took a book from the shelf and slammed it on the table, frustrated. "I see nothing of all that in front of me. You've let that intergalactic maniac turn you into a moody, lovesick schoolgirl."

"You've met him, Stark. You know how he got in other people's heads. The only problem is other people got him out and I can't."

"I also know that bonding with your captor is a perfectly normal reaction, and you don't have to beat yourself up for it. Is that what you needed to hear?"

"But if I had resisted, maybe..."

"Listen, honey. I've seen him kill several human beings as easily as you would kill a fly. If you had resisted you'd be dead by now, and deep down you know that. The doctors won't speak to you on this terms, they will talk about 'transference' and 'irrational empathy'... but you know that the real reason you're like that is because you're blaming yourself for everything Loki did to you."

Leah's only answer was another sneeze, and she burrowed under her white duvet.

"Gesundheit again."

"Remind the nurse to turn up the heating."

"What heating? It's a perfectly normal temperature in here."

"It may be for you, but I'm cold. Unless there's some kind of SHIELD protocol that forces their guests to freeze to death, tell that stupid woman to heat this room a bit more or bring me another duvet."

"I think you're coming down with the flu... Hopefully it won't be the Martian kind. Look, I'm going to take this food away and order you some soup; and if you behave and start eating normally again, I'll be back tomorrow and tell you all about a conversation I had with Rock of Ages before he was sent back to Asgard."

At the mention of Loki, she emerged from her improvised nest of blankets, but Tony Stark had already left the room. Ten minutes later the nurse in charge of the afternoon checks returned with a bowl of soup, and Leah forced herself to eat it before falling on a restless sleep.

* * *

**Asgard. Eight days before summer solstice. **Midday.**  
**

Some things are the same everywhere.

The poorly disguised prison cell on the basement of the Asgardian palace was remarkably similar to the poorly disguised hospital room on a secret base in the middle of Connecticut. The interior decorator of both places had showed an almost maniac preference for the color white. Both of them were spacious and comfortable, and a bit more luxurious than one could expect. Both of them contained a bed, a chair, a desk, a small mirror, an undisclosed amount of books, and a very sulky individual.

Of course, certain types of electronic equipment were not exactly fashionable on Asgard, so instead of hidden cameras there was a transparent wall that served exactly the same purpose, to take away any illusion of privacy. A guard who had peered into the white cell would have seen its inhabitant sitting on the bed, contemplating the wall with a placid and disdainful expression on his face.

The golden grid that marked the confines of the force field along the invisible wall sizzled for a fraction of a second, but none of the guards paid it any attention. Those contraptions made little weird noises all the time, and the last thing a guard wanted to do if he aspired to have some mental peace was get too close to Loki's cell. What they didn't suspect was that, every time, the sizzling was caused by two small bursts of magic: one that projected a carefully designed illusion that disguised the cell's interior from prying eyes; and another one, a bit more sophisticated, that allowed the slightly transparent figure of a woman to materialize inside the cell.

"The books you requested will be here soon. They are contraband goods, of course, but there is a bookseller in the city that specializes in that kind of things. My personal maid has visited him this morning, and he will have what you asked for in a few days."

"Thank you."

"You never told me why you are so fond of Midgardian culture all of a sudden. I thought you despised their race", she remarked, almost casually. It wasn't a direct question, because Frigga had learned many years before that interrogating her younger son was often fruitless. Instead, she hinted, insinuated, suggested... and she always ended up getting some kind of explanation.

This time, the fallen Prince tried to avoid his mother's inquisitive gaze.

"One book is as good as any other. If I have to rot in here for an eternity, I might as well have some distractions."

"Ah." The projection sat down on a decorated chair. It was an impressive show of magical craft; an exact copy of the Queen, from her carefully coiffed hair to the tips of her long, elegant fingers. Even the pleats of her lavender dress, made of light and magic instead of silk, rippled around her satin slippers when she moved. "I thought, for a moment, that there might be some other reason... that maybe you had grown fond of the world that would have been your realm."

"What other reason could there be? Do you really think I would spend my energies in missing that pathetic world?"

Frigga saw it again, the lowering of the eyes, the slight inclination of Loki's head that announced so clearly - at least to her heightened motherly intuition - that he was keeping something from her. She pressed her lips in a tight line for a moment, knowing that she wouldn't get him to tell her anything that day, and finally turned her gesture into a smile.

"I have to go now. I will be back soon, with your books."

"Thank you... Mother."

The illusion flickered and disappeared. Back in her private cabinet, Frigga looked out of the window, a bit concerned. Loki hadn't called her 'Mother' more than once since his return, and she couldn't decide if it had been a slip of the tongue... or the announcement of a deeper change.

* * *

**SHIELD's West Coast Operations Base. 14 PM.**

Back in the lab, Tony Stark locked the door behind him and activated the voice interface on the medical electronic brain.

"Computer, give me the exact temperature of Room A12."

"The temperature in Room A12 is twenty four point one seven degrees centigrade", answered a pleasant, automated female voice.

"Damn, it's practically tropical in there... I hope she's not really sick." After a moment he pressed a sequence of buttons on another console. "Activate infrared camera and display a thermography scan of Patient A12's body temperature."

The screen in front of him flashed an image of Leah's room, with her prone silhouette painted in several shades of yellow, green and blue.

"Compare with readings of Patient A12 from... seventy two hours ago."

Another flash, this time less blue and more yellow, and Tony Stark's eyebrows raised so much they almost shot off his face.

"Print one copy of each scan and delete all temperature readings of Patient A12, past and present. Don't take any further temperature readings of this subject."

"Authorization required, level six or higher."

"Authorization Stark-delta-nine."

"The files have been deleted."

"Disconnect voice interface, and delete all records of this conversation."

"Authorization requi..."

"Damn!"

"Please, repeat the command."

"Stark-delta-nine... the same as before", he grunted before dialing a number on his cell phone. He pressed the wrong button, swore a couple of times, and dialed again.

"Banner, I need you to call me as soon as you read this message... No, forget that. I need you to leave whatever it is you're doing and get your ass to New York, today. I'll be waiting for you in my office."

The security monitor in front of him showed Leah's sleeping figure, huddled under the blankets. Tony examined the printed reports again before folding them in half and putting them in the interior pocket of his suit. There was nothing in the stillness of the room or in the quiet beeping of the monitors that explained why he looked so distressed.

"Holy fuck."


	13. Every Day a Little Death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I seem to be a writer of extremes: after suffering a lack of inspiration for weeks, this chapter is five thousand words long. Sorry!

********Asgard. Seven days before summer solstice.** ** ** ********Midnight.** ** ** ** **

Tedium.

Monotony, boredom, endless ennui.

That's how Loki would have described the experience of being imprisoned, if someone had bothered to ask him.

Conversation was limited to Frigga's scarce visits. Once all the corners of his cell had been explored, all the yards of pavement walked up and down endless times, and all the books had been thoroughly read, he started to lose his patience, and that was only after the first week.

Noticing his foul mood, his mother had procured him paper, ink and quills, hoping he would find distraction in writing. At first they were only drabbles, disheveled thoughts; then, for one day and one long sleepless night he planned his revenge, only to throw the documents into the fire the next morning. After that, he didn't write anything for several days... until the letters.

Every night he couldn't sleep, he wrote one. Some were only one or two lines short, but the longest one was eighteen pages - front and back.

He was about to start one of them. With an impatient sigh, because his favorite quill was blunt and of course they had taken all his knives away, he picked a piece of paper and started, with the same greeting that figured on top of all the others:

_Lovely Leah,_   
_My bed is an empty desert without you. I miss your incessant talk, your constant irritating remarks. I even miss the bottles of that nasty Midgardian liquor that you tried so hard to hide from me. You did not need to do that... although it was truly disgusting. The point is, I wish I had had more time with you by my side. If things had gone my way... But I will not dwell in the past, and neither should you. I am not sure when this letter will reach you, if it ever does. My mother has promised to hand it to Thor before he travels to Midgard again, and that could be years from now._   
_I asked you to remember me, but I know the lives of your kind are fleeting. When you read this, you will probably have tied yourself to some Midgardian man. That one from your office, maybe. Perhaps you will have one or more brats with him. But I will not hold that against you, and I hope you have a good life, even without me. Especially without me._   
_Farewell._

He added an intricate signature, dropped the quill, and then picked it up again and scribbled a hurried line at the bottom:

_Disregard that last paragraph. You belong to me, forever, and when I get out of this filthy place I will find you again and rip out the heart of any man who has dared to steal what is mine._

The imprisoned Prince read the letter several times, not entirely satisfied with it, and with a grunt of frustration started pacing up and down the cell, until he finally placed the letter on his desk, on top of a pile of several others. Sleep was still eluding him, so he started reviewing a few of the other letters, stopping every now and then to make a correction or add a sentence somewhere.

Each one was a reflection of its author's changing mood:

_Lovely Leah,_   
_I have been here for seventeen days. I still bear the memory of your lips on my skin, and that will take centuries to fade._   
_Farewell._

_Lovely Leah,_   
_I was certainly a fool for becoming so attached to a lesser creature like you. You were behind my status in every aspect. Do not be offended, any other Midgardian woman would have been in the same place. I should have let you go and live the rest of your pitiful existence in the bland stupor that dominates your world, instead of trying to show you a greatness that your limited mortal mind was never able to understand. I forgive you, because your ignorance was involuntary._   
_Do forget me now, once and for all._

_Lovely Leah,_   
_If you knew to what extent I detest you right now, you would throw yourself into a pit, out of pure shame. I curse every moment I spent with you. I loathe anything and everything that reminds me of you. Because of your intermission I will never have peace again... For all your lack of magic, you may very well have been a witch, and I am now cursed because of it._   
_If there is a Hel for mortals, that is where you will go._

_Lovely Leah,  
Pay no heed to the letter before this one. Words written in haste are always unwise and, in this case, undeserved. I could have burned it, and its foul words, but I will make sure you get all of them, one for each of the nights when I feel madness chasing after me. Besides, I have gotten used to talking to you, so I will not apologize for doing it still, even now that I am sure we will never meet again._

_Lovely Leah,  
Today I miss you with such intensity that my longing could burn a hole in the walls of this cell._

_Lovely Leah,_   
_It will surprise you to learn that your presence did not figure in my original design. No, although I had always planned to seek a mortal woman to share my solitary hours. And I thought it out with as much care as I devised the rest of my strategy: during the weeks before my arrival, several of my involuntary Midgardian associates searched your world in pursuit of the most remarkable woman, one worthy of sharing a smidge of my glory. The day before we met in Stuttgart, I was presented with a choice between three creatures of endless accomplishments and impeccable beauty._   
_I will not bore you with the details. Know only that one of them was a performer, born like you in America, and decorated with many awards in her craft. The second one was the daughter of a wealthy businessman from India, and probably the most beautiful woman in the whole continent. And finally, the third one was a young but very charismatic member of the British Parliament._   
_Do not go back to the beginning of the letter, you have read correctly._   
_None of them was you._   
_Why, then...? are you probably asking yourself. Maybe the irrational nature of your world is infectious. Maybe it was the passion I heard in your words that made me disregard my carefully selected previous choice and take you as my companion. I can only affirm one thing: I may have made several mistakes during my time on Midgard. You were never one of them._   
_Farewell._

After re-reading and putting in order the stack of letters, Loki stored them away in a wooden box and went back to his contemplative state on the bed. Somewhere outside the cells, an Einherjar officer barked an order in low voice to the other soldiers, and the lights of the whole corridor went off.

* * *

****June 14. SHIELD's West Coast Operations Base. 9 AM.** **

"So... What do you think, Banner?"

Tony Stark was sitting in front of a set of computers in the observation room. Beside him, perched on top of a console, was the man he had called in such a hurry the day before, trying to fight the effects of the jet lag with the help of a giant cup of coffee.

"I think we're going to be in a lot of trouble if this gets out. In fact, _trouble_ may not be the right word... there will be a full shitstorm and Fury will have our heads."

"Well, our friend here is in a lot of trouble already. What other options do we have? Keep her in the dark? That will only work for a few days, it's not exactly an ideal solution. And if we tell Fury... you of all people should know how SHIELD will react to something like this.

Bruce Banner got down from his console and emptied the whole cup of coffee in a single gulp. "Fine, let's go in there and face the music."

"Whatever the song, she's the one who will have to dance."

The door to the poorly disguised hospital room opened without a noise, making way for the millionaire, who was holding three cups of tea and a plate of cookies in a very precarious balance; and the scientist, who carried two identical brown portfolios. Leah dragged herself from under the blankets and offered a polite smile to the two men.

"You should have warned me there was going to be a party, Stark. I would have straightened my hair and made some hors d'oeuvres."

"Careful with the tea, doll, it's scalding. I'm glad to see you're feeling better this morning."

"Just a little... but hey, one day at a time." She took a cup from the tray and glared at the stranger who was still waiting by the door. "Where is Dr. Wade? We had another completely useless therapy session scheduled for... right now."

"I'm afraid your therapist has had a small emergency with one of her credit cards, and she will be spending the whole morning at the bank. This," he added with a flourish, "is the internationally renowned Dr. Bruce Banner."

"Another therapist?" She shook Banner's hand with a grimace. "Sorry, the name doesn't ring a bell, but I'm sure Tony has informed you that I hate shrinks."

"I'm not that kind of doctor... my specialties are biochemistry and physics."

"Okay, now I'm completely lost."

"Banner has been trying to find out why you're feeling so cold all the time. We've reviewed the results of the physical you had when you got here, and the blood samples they took three weeks ago", answered Tony, placing the whole plate of cookies beside the sickly looking woman.

Leah grabbed a cookie from the plate and nibbled on it. "The nurses told me I was physically fine... Has something changed?"

Following several seconds of a very uncomfortable silence, Banner finally walked towards the center of the room and grabbed a chair.

"That initial examination was little more than a routine check-up. But I've reviewed it again, and there were some unusual markers in your blood analysis; there seems to be a slight biochemical imbalance that has caused your body temperature to drop by one centigrade below normal." He spoke slowly, trying to assess Leah's reaction to the news, but she seemed unfazed.

"And where does that imbalance come from? Did I catch an alien virus or something?"

The doctor extracted several papers from one of the portfolios and handed them to her. "Not exactly a virus. You could say it's more like... a _parasite_."

The cookie Leah was eating fell to the floor and rolled under a chair as she scrambled through the papers, holding her breath, before barking a mocking laugh.

"I don't know what kind of sick joke is this, doctor... if you really are a doctor... but it's not funny."

Stark and Banner exchanged a worried glance. "Miss Channing, I checked those results three times."

"Then your equipment is not working properly, because this is impossible." She handed the papers back to Banner, abruptly, and started pacing across the room. "Okay, gentlemen, TMI time: I've been on the pill for several years. I only stopped taking it when they brought me here because they took my purse and all my things away... but before that, I never forgot it, not one single day. Repeat the tests, correct the mistakes, do what you have to do, but I'm telling you that result is wrong!"

She stopped pacing and leaned against the closed door, and now it was Tony's time to walk nervously from one wall to the other.

"Leah, how can you be completely, absolutely sure?"

"Those pill blisters have little numbers written on them, Tony. They even have the day of the week! If I had forgotten one, I'd know, and I'm telling you I've never..." Leah's voice broke suddenly, and she started sliding down the door, until she was sitting on the floor, with her face hidden in her hands. "Oh, God..."

"What is it?"

"Oh, fuck. God, fuck, no..."

The two men rushed towards her, and Tony hunched next to the increasingly agitated woman. "Doll, we can't help you if you don't speak to us."

"The Cub Room", she croaked in a weak voice.

"And now would be the time to be a little more precise."

"The day Loki brought me to New York, at the restaurant... I threw up."

"Yes, I remember. And...?"

"You have absolutely no idea how these things work, do you? If you throw up shortly after taking it, it's not effective, and you may have to take another one." She blinked through her budding tears. "But I didn't, because I'm completely stupid and I did everything I could to erase the events of that particular day from my mind!"

"Understood. Now, let's take a deep breath..."

"To hell with you and your deep breaths! What do I have inside?"

Tony helped Leah back to the bed, wrapped the duvet around her and pointed to Banner, who was awkwardly staring at the wall. "I believe that's a question for the doctor here."

Another paper was extracted from the doctor's folder. "I need to take another blood sample to be sure, and make an MRI, but the good news is that almost everything looks as it should be on a normal pregnancy. Except for the chemical imbalance that I mentioned earlier, and that can be corrected with medication."

"Wait, an MRI? Is that safe?"

"Absolutely." He lowered his gaze to the stack of papers. "Miss Channing, if this were a normal situation you would be given the choice to go forward with the pregnancy or not."

"Yes", she muttered, her expression completely blank.

"What I mean is..."

"I know what you mean. But it's the only thing I have left of him... end of discussion", she interrupted, and her voice was clear and hard again. "What will happen to me now? What's SHIELD going to do with... with the little alien?"

Dr. Banner handed her the second brown folder. It contained several graphics and test results that looked almost, but not quite, identical to the first set. "This is the information that will be officially transmitted to Director Fury as soon as this meeting ends."

"But this... this makes no sense. It says here that I _did_ contract some kind of alien microorganism, and that I'm being treated for it by Dr. Banner."

"Expertly treated. And thanks to my dear friend Bruce, who has devised a brand new cocktail of enzymes, antivirals and... whatchamacallit, you will be as good as new in less than a week, right before your scheduled quarantine ends", answered Stark, while he finished the last two cookies from the plate. "So, the answer to your question is that SHIELD won't do anything at all with Loki Junior... because they won't know of its existence."

Leah sat on the bed and took a deep breath. "I'm surprised that you're not insisting on the possibility of getting rid of it. Is there something you haven't told me, doctor?"

Banner handed her yet another graphic, the last one in the folder. "This was taken with a new thermal imaging lens prototype that Tony adapted to the surveillance system yesterday night. It shows that your level of vascularization is several times higher than it should be at this stage."

"Fine. Now let's try it again, this time in English."

"An intricate network of blood vessels has formed between you and the embryo. The interconnections are too complex and reach too deep into your organs, which means that terminating your pregnancy now could result in a fatal blood loss. For all we know, this could be a perfectly normal physiological response for an Asgardian..."

"Loki is not Asgardian."

"I suspected as much. SHIELD asked Thor to give a blood sample before he left; it's standard procedure, but when I compared it with your modified blood markers it didn't match at all, suggesting that Loki belongs to an entirely different species. Anyway, my personal opinion is that you're not at risk if the pregnancy continues... for now."

Leah's paleness increased, and all the blood seemed to drain from her face. "I think I'm going to be sick."

"Here, have some herbal tea", said Banner, offering her one of the untouched mugs. "Look, you've seen for yourself how resilient Loki was, even when we... even when the Hulk attacked him at Stark Tower. There's absolutely no reason to believe that you're carrying a perfectly normal and healthy..."

"...human-Rock of Ages hybrid", finished Tony. "Which brings us to the next problem: if you have the baby on any hospital on this planet, SHIELD will know. The biological markers are too different, even if it doesn't sprout wings or starts having deliriums of grandeur as soon as he's born. "

All Leah could manage was a small sad smile. "I don't know exactly how rich you are, but I doubt you own a spaceship and a medical base on the Moon."

"Not yet... which is why I've thought of a Plan B. Bruce, can you bring some snacks and more tea? This is going to take a while."

* * *

**********Asgard. Seven days before summer solstice. Early morning** ** ** ** **********.** ** ** ** ** **

"Good day, Mother." The golden haired Avenger entered Frigga's private study to find the Queen sitting on an armchair, busy with some needlework, and kissed her cheek affectionately.

"Good day, my dear."

"You look a bit tired. Perhaps your recent visits to my brother have taken their toll on your energies."

"Thor, it is very bad manners to insinuate to a lady that she doesn't always look like a rose." The Queen left her embroidery hoop on her lap and gave her son a wink and a smile. "You know I am forbidden to visit him, and not one living soul can prove that I have been near the cells, ever."

"I also know you have your ways to dance around that prohibition, Mother."

"And you do not approve of my dancing." Thor opened his mouth to answer, but Frigga extended a hand, asking him to sit beside her. "One day you will have children of your own, and maybe then you will understand. Until that day, I will be the only judge of my actions." She reached for one of the books piled in front of her, flipping through the pages and humming calmly to herself.

"I have never seen those before. A present for Loki?"

"I admit nothing. But to keep your brother from reading would be like keeping him from breathing."

"Those are Midgardian books."

"Yes. He asked for some very specific volumes. An odd choice, since he seemed to despise that world so much, but perhaps living there, even for a short time, has had some effect on him", she finished in a hopeful tone.

Thor seemed suddenly very interested in the crackling of the flames in the fireplace, until Frigga placed a delicate hand on his arm.

"And now you are the one who is hiding something from me, my son. Your mother may not be young anymore but she is not deaf or blind. What ails you?"

The Prince kept looking at the fire. There were several pieces of Frigga's needlework on the table, and he started picking at one of them, not realizing that he was spoiling the fine embroidery. "There are things you ignore about my brother's exploits on Midgard, and one of them worries me the most. I cannot tell the Allfather, nor I think he would understand."

"It will be a very sad day when you feel you cannot speak freely to me, Thor. You know you can tell me anything."

"There was a woman."

"With Loki?" asked the Queen, abandoning all pretense of being distracted by the book in her hand.

"Yes, a mortal called Leah. She was his companion during the time he spent on Midgard. He took her from her home by force at first, but..."

Frigga sighed and covered her eyes with her hand. "Thor, please, stop talking. I have heard everything else your brother has done, but I am not sure I can listen to this."

"It is not what you think, Mother. I am convinced that she really cared for him. And Loki... after his defeat he asked about her constantly. He even made me swear that SHIELD would not harm her in any way. And I, in turn, extracted the same promise from Colonel Fury."

"You speak of her as a willing paramour, not a prisoner."

"She was both, as hard as it seems to comprehend. And I have never seen Loki so upset before, not in these matters."

Frigga's eyes narrowed, and she leaned forward. "Tell me more about that woman."

"She rode into battle alone to look for him, and she was absolutely devastated after his defeat."

"What was she like?"

"Intelligent. Opinionated, maybe a bit too much." Thor smiled. "Quite pretty, though not as fair as my Jane. I think she and Loki were a good match, considering..."

" _Considering_. A tricky word that can have many meanings, and all of them dwell in the past now." It was Frigga's turn of staring at the flames. "From what you tell me, they might have been a good match, in different circumstances. But there is no use talking about this, Thor. Even if the Bifröst was restored, even if that woman wanted to come back to Loki's side, we do not have the right to decide over the life of a mortal. If your brother has left a piece of his heart on Midgard, I fear it will remain there... forever."

"I am the first one who wants him to pay for his crimes, but you seem so confident on the possibility of his redemption that I thought I should tell you."

"And I appreciate your confidence." The lady rose from her seat, indicating with no shadow of doubt that the interview had finished. "I need some time to reflect about this. Will you ask your father to excuse me from luncheon?"

As soon as Thor left, the Queen took a silver key from under her garments and opened a small cabinet that contained several old books and parchments, some of them so deteriorated that they almost crumbled into dust when she opened them. A thin vertical line appeared between her perfect eyebrows while she leafed through the ancient volumes, and her look of fierce determination would have scared even the most fearless of Asgard's warriors.

* * *

******June 14. SHIELD's West Coast Operations Base. 1 PM.** ** **

"Is that what you call a brilliant plan? This is suicide, and I'll be the one committing it!"

The empty plate of cookies flew across the room and ended up rolling under the bed, while Tony Stark cowered behind the desk. "I think that cocktail of hormones Banner has just given you is starting to have an effect."

"Don't you dare trying to play the pregnancy hormones card, Stark. I'm angry at you because your plan sucks!"

"How curious... Whenever we're friends, I'm 'Tony'. Now that you're trying to hit me on the head with a chair, you go back to 'Stark'."

"Come out from there, I'm not going to hit you with anything yet." Leah let go of the chair's back. "You're telling me that you know a scientist who can do this, but you don't know where she lives now and you're not sure she will want to help. Even if that person agrees to do something very dangerous and completely illegal, there's no guarantee that it will work. And if it works... God knows where I'll end, and it what state."

"If you want to be negative and see it like that... According to the basics of inter-dimensional travel, it should work. In theory. I can explain it again if you need me to."

"Please don't. All I've got from almost five hours of explanations is a lot of technobabble, many doubts and a splitting headache... Are you sure no one is listening to this?"

"If they were, we'd be under a swarm of armed agents now."

"I need to lie down a bit. I need to be alone and think... Every decision I've made for the last month has led to a disaster, I have to get this one right."

"Happy to see you're back to being reasonable... although now I'm worried because you look a bit _too_ calm."

"Well, I prefer not to freak out in front of other people, if I can avoid it. Except when they try to send me on a suicide mission." She looked at her watch and gasped. "Where is Dr. Banner? He left almost two hours ago."

"Finishing your bloodwork. We have to make sure that you won't need additional medical attention once you're out of here." Tony closed up his laptop and gathered the multitude of documents scattered over the small desk. "Doll, there's something about your boyfriend that I haven't told you."

Leah sat down on the bed again, trying to put the blankets in order. "Shoot. At this point I don't think anything can surprise me anymore."

"Before Loki was taken to Asgard, he asked for you."

"Well, he's not exactly the sentimental kind, but I don't blame him for wanting to say goodbye."

"That's not what I mean. Apparently, there's a... an Asgardian tradition that allows a defeated warrior of royal blood to bring home something from the battlefield. Like an enemy's sword, a piece of armor, a token, or even a..."

"A person? Is that what you're trying to say?"

"According to Thor, the tradition is valid, but very old, and it hasn't been enforced in centuries. Especially because of the _person_ thing, even the Asgardians agree that it sounds a bit barbaric."

It was a good thing that Leah was sitting down, because her knees started shaking uncontrollably.

"Of course we told him that his request was absurd and out of the question, and that the citizens of Earth are not souvenirs that he can take back to his world after a vacation. He insisted that he was entitled to take you with him, and he seemed truly upset when Fury told him that he didn't have a chance in hell."

"Entitled. Yes, that word describes him quite well." Leah pressed her fingertips over her pounding temples, trying to lure away the dull pain.

"What I'm trying to say is that, if everything goes well and you end up landing in the right place, I think he will be more than happy to see you again."

"If he's still alive."

Tony's laugh echoed on the white walls of the room. "Let me give you one bit of information about privileged people: We always get very lenient verdicts. And royalty tend to be on the top of the privileges pyramid... He won't be sentenced to death. If he is, it will be commuted. And if they send him to prison, it won't be for long."

"Do you speak from experience?"

"I've done a few things I'm not proud of in my time. If there was equal justice in the world, I'd be in a federal prison now, paying for several of them."

Leah gave him a dirty look. "I hate rich people."

"And that is my cue for going back to the lab and leaving you to your very pleasant thoughts", he smirked, walking towards the door. "You have a lot to process, I'd suggest that you take a nap before the nurse brings you lunch. In a couple of hours Dr. Wade will be back and you'll have to go through your routine and your therapy session as usual. Don't give anything away!"

"I may be dumb, but not that much!" she retorted. "Go, see if you can locate that Dr. Faust of yours."

"Foster."

"Whatever. With the pile of credentials she has, according to you, she must be in Stockholm accepting a Nobel Prize. Or in a nursing home."

"Don't let the bedbugs bite you."

"Fuck off. See you tomorrow."

Back in the lab, Bruce Banner raised his head from the controls of the mass spectrometer and threw an accusatory glance at his friend.

"You didn't tell her who Dr. Foster is, right?"

"I informed her of her existence and her accolades... That's all she needs to know", answered the millionaire, shrugging. "And... I may have let her believe that she's a venerable old astrophysicist lady."

"You may want to hide the sharp objects when those two meet and start trading stories."

"One thing at a time, my friend... One thing at a time."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the medical and scientific jargon on this chapter is completely made up... except for the vascularization process, which was inspired by a Star Trek DS9 episode (credit where credit is due).


	14. Invocation to the Muses

********June 25. SHIELD's West Coast Operations Base. 10:30 AM.** ** ** **

If anyone had told Leah Channing that one day she would be perusing a copy of _Chicken Soup for the Soul_ , she would have erupted in a mocking laughter. And yet, there she was, lying on her stomach with a pencil in her hand, scribbling furiously on the margins of the book with a look of extreme concentration.

In the ten days since the small conspiracy had started, SHIELD's vigilance had not relaxed a bit, especially since the news of the 'alien virus' had reached certain levels. Tony and Bruce had been busy designing and perfecting a plan, and their way of passing her information had to become more creative. So, she faked an interest in self-help books that Tony would get custom printed, replacing one or more pages with the data she needed. _Who Moved My Cheese_ had her travel itinerary printed between pages 16 and 19; _The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari_ contained a long list of Dr. Foster's professional achievements, and the _Chicken Soup_ one was giving her a few insights on basic interdimensional travel and particle physics.

As an unexpected side effect, Leah's therapist had never been happier.

A quick rap on the door interrupted the silence, and Tony Stark appeared carrying the customary two cups of herbal tea and a big cardboard box that he threw on the desk. She was beginning to like the tea, although she still missed her morning coffee, mostly for the simple reason that she wasn't allowed to drink caffeine anymore.

"How you doing, honey? Any nausea, any headaches...?" asked Tony.

"No, just the constant sneezes", she said signaling to the almost empty box of tissues on her nightstand. "For all we know, they could be the Asgardian version of morning sickness."

"So, are you ready for your big day tomorrow?"

"If by _big day_ you mean the day I get out of here and embark in the most stupid adventure of my life... then yes, I am", she answered, tossing the book to the floor.

The millionaire frowned. "You're very moody today. What's wrong?"

"Doctor Wade finally let me read newspapers this week. I've been reading about New York, and the battle."

"If you ask me, your therapist is a bit of an idiot for letting you see that so soon."

"I would have seen it today, or tomorrow, the moment I got out of here, Tony. I needed to know exactly what happened."

"And now you're having second thoughts about the plan."

"Not exactly, but this thing I'm going to do... It feels like I'm running towards Loki over the corpses of the hundreds of people who died in the battle, over the debris of their destroyed homes."

"You're not only doing this for yourself, honey."

"No, I'm doing it for the little alien... at least in part."

"And do you know what the survivors of New York would do to your kid if they found out? Revenge is a very strong instinct, Jersey girl. You need to get away from Earth, and I think your little alien will benefit from being born in a place where nobody will chase him with torches and pitchforks."

"I really hope you're right. And hoping is not exactly my strongest suit, you know. Anyway, whatever I choose, I'm sure it will end up leading back to him: if I stay, sooner or later Thor will be back and he will know of my... state, and he'll probably go back and tell Loki."

"And if you go, you'll probably be stuck with him for the rest of your life. It's not like you can take the Asgard Express back here if it doesn't work out."

"I know I'll have to say goodbye to a lot of things if I go. But still, I hope it's better than staying and being a lab rat." She picked the book and put it back on the nightstand, and then started to inspect the contents of the box. "What's all this stuff? Is it for me?"

"For starters, your purse and your shoes. I'm afraid the suit you wore on the day of the battle was in a terrible state and they threw it away, but I asked Pepper to get you new clothes."

"Nice, I'm dying to get rid of these tracksuits they make me wear here. SHIELD may be the most powerful secret organization in the civilized world, but their fashion style sucks to high heaven. Who's Pepper?"

"She works for... and she's also my... well, she's Pepper."

Leah let out a little laugh, the first in several days. "I'm glad that you have a 'Pepper'. She must be really something if she puts up with you... and the clothes are perfect", she said, uncovering a tailored white shirt and a pair of black slacks. "Very nice, very Carolina Herrera-ish."

"I'll pass your compliments to her and her personal shopper."

She opened the purse and found her wallet. "Hey, why are all my credit cards missing? And my driver's license isn't here either... Tell SHIELD that they have a pickpocket in their midst, Stark."

"That's one of the things I came to talk to you about. Okay, there's no easy way to tell you this, but... Leah, you're dead."

"I'm what? What's this then, a low budget version of The Sixth Sense?"

"What I mean is that the person known as Leah Channing is dead. SHIELD included your name in the list of the New York casualties, because your identity was leaked to the press after the Stuttgart thing. There's no way you could be an anonymous citizen again after that."

"So they decided to kill me... how rude."

Tony Stark handed her a thick envelope full of documents. "Everything you need is in there. Passport, credit cards, Social Security number, all with your new name. And you have a perfectly clean record now, not even a parking ticket."

"I had a perfectly clean record before, I wasn't exactly a criminal."

"Mostly, yes, but the Social Services in New Jersey had a lot of information on you concerning your mother's addiction problem, and there were a lot of reports from your school detailing your situation of potential neglect. All of that has disappeared, you're a completely new person now."

Leah looked at her brand new driving license and pulled a face. "It says here that my name is Nancy Anne Zemeckis. _Nancy_? Seriously?"

"Nice to meet you, Miss Zemeckis of the horribly un-fashionable name."

"Did you choose it?"

"As if I didn't have better taste than that! No, some agent in the PR department did. If you ask me, it kind of sucks... but you'll have to get used to it, at least for a while."

"So, according to this, I was born in Magnolia, Texas." Leah's eyes roamed over her birth certificate. "I'm going to need a map, I'm not that familiar with the South Central part of the country. Oh, nice, I'm thirty two years old! At least they made me one year younger... thank your boss for that."

"That was actually my idea. I wanted to put twenty eight but they didn't let me... You're welcome, doll."

"Please tell me I won't have to dye my hair or wear trashy colored contacts."

"Only your name was on the news, not your picture, so you can do without the crazy dyed hair. But I'd strongly suggest that you stay away from New York; the people who worked at the Cub Room may remember you. And, of course, showing your face in Stuttgart again is completely out of the question, because all your colleagues think you're pushing daisies. The people from your law firm organized you a very nice funeral, though... I can get you pictures if you want."

"That's a bit tasteless and extremely creepy."

"Okay, no pictures."

"But what of my apartment in Stuttgart? The mortgage was paid, and all my stuff is still in there!"

"Your things have been transported to a storage unit in Berlin, of which I have a key that will be given to you as soon as you leave; the real estate division of Stark Enterprises sold your apartment two weeks ago." He handed her a bank statement. "As a result, Nancy Zemeckis has a very nice savings account with three hundred and fifty thousand euros in it."

"Great price, especially in this economy."

"I told my people to sell it well. You're welcome again."

Leah sat on the bed and memorized her new Social Security number. "It's going to be weird, getting out of here after all these weeks. Good thing that I don't have any family, I'm guessing SHIELD would have had to tell them I was 'dead'."

Tony squirmed a little in his chair and extracted another folder from the box. "That may not be exactly true, sweetheart. There's something else they haven't told you."

"Oh, no." Leah's smile disappeared. "I hate that sentence. Every time I hear you say _there's something else_ I cringe in fear."

"SHIELD has found your father." He raised a hand, signalling the woman before him to keep calm. "Don't get your panties in a twist, it's standard procedure on cases like this."

"Has there been any other case like this before?"

"Not exactly, but you know what I mean. And they haven't told him anything, the protocol just states that all immediate family members have to be located, just as a precaution." He handed her the folder, that contained a few paper sheets and several pictures. "May I introduce you to Mr. Benjamin Goldman, formerly from Newark and currently residing in Los Angeles."

"Goldman? Funny, I always thought I was Italian on both sides."

"Mazel Tov."

"Fuck off, Tony." The woman that should have been called Leah Goldman, but wasn't, looked closely at the pictures and tried to find some resemblance of herself in the man's features. "What does he do for a living?"

"It turns out the lawyer stuff is a family thing: he owns a very successful divorce law firm. Several B-list movie stars have been his clients in the last few years." Tony looked at the tips of his shoes and cleared his throat a few times before speaking again. "Honey... Goldman has no idea that you exist. Apparently he left New Jersey before your mother realized you were on the way, he moved to California and got married to another woman twenty five years ago. No children."

"Oh." Leah's face was completely devoid of expression.

"And now I have to ask you if you want me to contact him, maybe break the news as gently as possible."

She stood up and put one of the photographs in her purse, storing the rest away in the brown folder. "I don't think it's a good idea. I may not be long for this world - and, by world, I mean planet - and it would be useless to shock the man to death and then disappear. No, Mr. Goldman should continue with his life as normal. I have no right to involve him in the circus that is mine."

"Fine. I have to leave now, so you can get ready to leave. An agent will pick you up around one... Do you need anything else?"

"Now that you mention it, I need a Martini. Very dry."

"You know I can't do that."

"Of course I know. But you asked if I needed anything, and I can't deny what I need", she answered, getting back to her original prone position on the bed. "How am I going to face the normal world again, Tony?"

"You won't be on your own for long. Dr. Foster will keep you company and stop you from doing anything stupid. Until then... my personal, useless advice is that you try and be strong. See you later, honey."

The woman on the bed grabbed the cup of herbal tea and went back to reading her book, trying to keep her mind occupied and not think of what the future might bring.

* * *

********Asgard. Three days after summer solstice. Morning****** ** ** ** **.** ** ** ** **

Exactly on the same moment when Leah was trying to push away some depressing thoughts, her lover was occupied in remembering her in a very different way.

Lounging on his bed, with his gaze lost in an imaginary horizon, making the Einherjar outside believe that he was just about to fall asleep... Loki was completely silent and immobile, but his mind was buzzing with an incessant activity. He did this often, and at this point every second of the week he had spent with Leah had been replayed in his head hundreds of times. Some days all he could recall were sad memories, others (not too many of them) moderately happy. He didn't even have to conjure an image of her: the picture on his mind was too clear, and several weeks of being apart couldn't erase the memories of her few days and nights together.

On this particular day, he was reminiscing over certain extremely satisfying nighttime activities.

The imprisoned Prince closed his eyes and sent his thoughts over the long distance that separated his home from Midgard. He wasn't a telepath, of course, but somehow the sensation was increased if he concentrated and tried to picture the place where Leah lived.

One after the other, little fragments of the erotic scenes they had played together started to take shape. It was easy once he concentrated, because someone who could potentially live for thousands of years needs to forget, else he would go insane. But the minds of those who dwelled in Asgard had ways of making the journey back to a specific point in time, as if they were digging in a mine that contained layer after layer of images. If he searched long enough, he could remember any event from his long existence. Such a perfect memory was both a blessing and a curse for the Aesir... and also for him who, although not belonging to the same race, seemed to share some of their features.

He didn't have to dig very deep this time, because the little details he was looking for were forever engraved in his mind. Like the way her breath used to hitch for a second every time he ran his tongue over the hollow of her throat. Or the slight stinging sensation of her short, red nails raking over his back; of course she couldn't hurt him with her limited mortal strength, but it was enough to evoke a thrilling sense of danger, and he thrived on that sensation. She also liked to feel his heartbeat, with her hand splayed over his chest... and her touch was somewhat healing, as if he could feed off the heat of her palm on his cold skin...

All of a sudden Loki opened his eyes to the cold whiteness of his cell and sat up, with his heart racing, muttering a curse under his breath. His beautiful, regal hands clutched the bedcovers under him, and he could feel how the pleasant, calming thoughts floated away.

For the last few days, it had been impossible for him to concentrate well every time he sent his conscience towards her Midgardian lover. It was true that the images were clear - the kind of images no well bred man would describe in polite company - but there was something else that bothered him. Sex may have been the reason why he took her in the first place, but it had changed in their brief time together. Those intimate moments were always on the top of his mind, but they weren't just the memory of the physical act.

The real reason why those thoughts were constantly troubling him was that, in the throes of passion, when Leah's cheeks blushed with excitement and her voice broke while repeating his name in a hoarse whisper, he could feel that she was happy. And she was willing. Every time she laughed in bed (it had taken him a while to accept that her laughter was not a mockery, that she did it out of pure bliss), it fueled the illusion that he had not taken her by force from her life, her friends, her safe little corner of the world. It blurred the memory of the blackmail and the veiled threats he had used on her at first.

Because if he tried hard enough he could even believe, just for a short moment, that Leah had belonged to him on her own free will.

* * *

********June 25. SHIELD's West Coast Operations Base. 2 PM.** ** ** **

Nancy Anne Zemeckis, formerly Leah Channing, was officially released from SHIELD's custody at forty-five minutes past one.

Right after lunch, an agent she had never seen before escorted her out of the room she had occupied for thirty four days, and led her through a maze of underground rooms and corridors. Tony and Dr. Banner were waiting for her near the exit, outside a small storage room.

"We'll take it from here, Agent Butler. Thank you." As soon as Butler had disappeared back into the net of white passages, Tony produced a key card out of his pocket and and opened the door.

Leah did her best to stifle a gasp, because the room was filled with all the things Loki had bought (or maybe stolen?) for her during their week together. Everything had been cleaned and organized: clothes to one side, in garment bags, jewels and cosmetics to the other, and the books in a neat pile on top of a table. She didn't react for a few seconds, so Tony gave her a little nudge towards a suitcase next to her.

"Director Fury says that you can keep whatever you want from here. It's supposed to be evidence, but everything has been already examined and decontaminated."

"They're just things", she muttered, trying not to choke on the words while her mind registered all the memories those _just things_ were bringing back. "And they don't really belong to me, I shouldn't have them."

"You could pick just one thing", said Bruce, surprising the others, because he had been completely silent until then. "Something that doesn't bring bad memories... or maybe something practical that you can use."

"What of all this can be considered practical? The clothes are too flashy unless I'm going to an awards gala, I never wear jewels, and... oh, wait!" Leah walked towards the bags of clothes and picked one of them. "I can have a use for this. Not now, but maybe in the future."

"Good choice", agreed the millionaire while she put the garment bag into the small suitcase. "Well, in that case, this is goodbye, doll. One of SHIELD's drivers is going to take you to the airport.

Leah rolled her eyes. "Please, not to Newark."

"Of course not, that's also on the list of places where you can't go in case someone recognizes you. You'll be flying from JFK. Banner and I have managed to persuade Fury that the best thing for your recovery would be a long vacation, preferably on another continent, so they booked you a flight to London. From there, you can go... _wherever you like_."

As they got out of the storage room, Tony signaled with an almost invisible head tilt to one of the cameras that surveyed the corridor. That and the inflection in his voice told Leah that there would be no more talk of their plans, at least not within SHIELD's premises. Once they reached the gate of the complex (disguised under what looked like a Coca-Cola factory), she prepared to say her goodbyes to her newfound allies.

"I will miss our talks, doll", admitted Tony with a tight hug.

"So will I... except maybe fifty percent of the time, when you're a jerk." She looked at a small package, wrapped in brown paper, that Tony was holding. "Is that for me?"

"A parting gift."

She unwrapped the book and started laughing so hard that she had to wipe out a small tear, because it was another self-help book: _Men Are from Mars,_ _Women Are from Venus._

"I tried looking for the _Men Are from Asgard_ edition, but it was out of print. By the way, you know that the offer to work for me still stands, right? I'm always in need of good lawyers. And when I say good, I mean heartless."

"Then I may not be the right choice for that anymore. Thank you, Tony, for everything." Then she turned to Dr. Banner and held out her hand with genuine affect.

"Goodbye, Miss Channing... I mean, Zemeckis. And don't worry, everything is going to be alright."

"I wish I had your optimism, doctor..." she whispered, "but you're not carrying a potential monster inside of you."

The scientist gave her a quick hug so that she wouldn't see the sudden burst of pain on his face, helped her put the suitcase in the back of the car, and waved her goodbye without a word.

"Do you think I should have told her about the other guy? I mean, it's only fair", he sighed in Tony's direction.

"It may have been fair... if you had been in the mood for a scream match and a scratched face", answered his friend. "Trust me, it's much better for everybody's peace of mind if she doesn't know that you're the one who beat her boyfriend into a pulp. Besides, you're also the one who's helping her get reunited with Rock of Ages, and that cancels out the other thing. Sort of."

"I'm not sure it does, but, as Leah always says... _Whatever_."

"Then let's go back to the lab and check those calculations again. I emailed Jane Foster yesterday with the last data approximation, let's see what she thinks of it."

"I just hope we're not sending that woman to her death."

"That would be a shame, she has exactly the kind of sense of humor that I like."

* * *

**June 28. Fiumicino Airport, Rome.**

The young police agent who was on passport control duty at Fuimicino gave a wink to the pretty American tourist, greeting her in a heavily accented English. "Welcome to Rome, signorina... Zemeckis. Have you been to Italy before?"

Leah took a deep breath and grinned, determined to keep the officer's attention away from her fake passport. "No, but I'm really looking forward to it. You see, my grandmother... la mia nonna era italiana."

"Ah, then you are almost like family!" The man's smile widened, and he closed her passport without even looking at it. "Have a great time in Rome, bellissima."

Everything was easier from there, because some stereotypes are based on truth, particularly the one about Italian men being prone to flirting. When she finally arrived to her hotel room, having given her widest smiles to the cab driver, the receptionist and the bellhop, her cheeks hurt a bit from all the grinning, but she finally felt safe and anonymous... Just another tourist in the loud, chaotic and crowded city that she loved.

She had been to Rome before, several times, so she was happy to see that the Italian city was her meeting point with Dr. Foster. That same morning, she had received an email from the doctor's assistant, asking her to choose a place to meet, and she had quickly made a reservation in her favorite restaurant. La Gatta Mangiona was a gorgeous little place in the middle of the Trastevere, and she was really hungry for some local delicacies.

Before leaving the facility, Banner had given her a very long list of the medications she couldn't take (no painkillers or sleeping pills, among others) and the foods she couldn't eat (sadly, prosciutto was absolutely prohibited), and of course she hid the wine menu under her napkin to avoid the ever present temptation. But, apart from that, there were many things she could enjoy, and she was determined to live her last days on Earth as if she was really condemned to death. After refusing the wine for the third time ( _una bottiglia de_ _acqua minerale non gassata, prego; grazie mille_ ), she ordered some stuffed zucchini flowers and a plate of crostini as an appetizer, because Dr. Foster's intern was running late.

About fifteen minutes later a brunette girl in jeans, obviously American, arrived in a hurry and almost out of breath to the door of the restaurant, and looked very relieved to see her.

"Hi! Wow, I'm terribly late... are you Nancy Zemeckis?" she asked, dropping her heavy bag on a chair.

"No... I mean, yes!" Leah almost stood up and hugged the intern, but reminded herself just in time that this was a professional meeting."I was starting to think you had bailed out on me."

"Sorry, the traffic was awful and I've been looking for a parking space for half an hour."

"I see you've never been in Rome before... a bit of advice, don't try to drive here. These people are brutal behind a wheel, I always take the tram instead". She pointed to the chair across her and pushed the plate of zucchini flowers towards the girl. She decided that she liked the young intern, and besides it would be really nice to have someone to socialize with while the doctor did all her scientific stuff. "You must be Darcy, right? How long have you been working for Dr. Foster?"

The girl's smile became a little forced, and she bit her lip for a second before answering.

"I am Jane Foster."


	15. If You Can Find Me, I'm Here

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are again! Thank you for all the kudos and reviews, they mean a lot to me. This chapter gets a bit angsty towards the end... There will be only three or four chapters more until the story is finished.

**June 28. Trattoria 'La Gata Mangiona', Rome. 7pm.  
**

Leah's fork fell on her plate with an audible _clink,_ a bit muffled by the ambient noise in the restaurant. She reached for her wine glass and gulped its contents, forgetting that it contained mineral water instead of Chianti.

Across the table, Jane Foster let out an exasperated sigh. "Don't tell me you were expecting me to be a man."

"No, of course I knew you were a woman, I've read your file. But there was no picture; I was imagining someone older than me, at least. When did you have time to get three doctorates? Are you a prodigy or something?"

"Astrophysics is my life's passion, and I take my work very seriously." Jane stared at the woman in front of her, as if trying to decide the best way to continue the conversation. "Look, Nancy..."

"Call me that again and I swear to God I'll get up and leave."

"Fine, I'm just going to start the conversation again", said the scientist, trying not to respond to Leah's tantrum. "Leah. Let's order some food and discuss the situation in a civilized way, okay? If what Tony Stark told me on his emails is right, we're talking about opening an interdimensional portal and send you through it. It has been done before, the first time Thor was on Earth, but he's not available now and this is going to need very precise calculations... and a lot of expensive equipment that Stark has very kindly loaned to me. It will be dangerous. And it will take a few weeks for me to assemble the machinery and finish my calculations, so in the meantime I suggest that you ignore my age and lend me a hand. Deal?"

Leah took a deep breath. "Deal. I shouldn't have snapped like that... I could blame the pregnancy hormones but, to be completely honest, I've always been like that."

Jane nodded and bit a small corner of her crostini bread, just as an extremely cheerful (and flirty) waiter approached the table and asked if they were ready to order the entrées.

"I'm going to need your help with that", she whispered. "I don't speak a word of Italian."

A few minutes later, the food had arrived and the atmosphere between the two women seemed more relaxed. Especially for Leah, who was devouring her gnocchi as if it was her last meal.

"Sorry for eating like this, but I was so nervous during the flight here that I couldn't eat anything. And I just came out of several weeks of an institutional SHIELD diet: great for your health, but everything tastes like soggy cardboard."

"It's okay. The food here is great, there's no shame in enjoying it."

"Well, I can't drink anymore, I'm sure you know about that. I've never smoked, except for a rebellious couple of months during my freshman year at Columbia. And I can't have sex, because the only man I want is half a galaxy away from me. So, food is the only pleasure I have left. Besides, I think the little alien is growing, I don't remember being this hungry ever before."

Jane raised her eyebrows. "You call him 'little alien'?"

"I can't say 'little monster', I'm sure Lady Gaga has it copyrighted."

"But... you haven't at least thought about names?"

"Names?" Leah looked at Jane as if she was the alien. "No. I've thought about how -and if- I'm going to survive this. I've thought about what he or she is going to look like, and imagined him or her in every possible shade of blue skin and red eyes. I've thought about how badly Loki is going to react when he knows... but, I assure you, baby names are the last thing on my mind right now."

Jane Foster had no superhuman powers of any kind, and she had never fancied herself a telepath, but in that moment she knew without any doubt that someone needed to change the topic... So, she tried.

"Leah, what do you know about Stromboli?"

"Stromboli? It's a good movie."

"There's a movie?"

"With Ingrid Bergman. Italian neorealism, very dark, very depressing... You should see it."

"I was talking about the island. It's a small rock in the middle of the Tyrrhenian sea. There's an active volcano on it that, according to my calculations, could be the perfect point of entry for the portal, so we'll be going there in a couple of weeks."

"You want me to jump into the crater of a volcano?"

"It won't be a crater when the interdimensional door is open. And it's the perfect location for working, because the place is isolated and only a handful of people live there, apart from a few tourists. If SHIELD thinks of sending someone to check on you, we'll know because he'll stick out like a sore thumb."

Leah gave her newfound ally a small smile. "I'm glad to know you don't have a lot of warm feelings towards SHIELD."

"Two years ago they took all my notes, my investigation, everything I had been working on for years. They confiscated my life's work without even asking."

"Talk about rude... Although, in my case, they confiscated _me_."

"If it hadn't been for Thor's help, my whole career would have been over."

"Oh, you know Thor, too? I met him a few days before the New York... thing. He's nice if you like the big muscly type."

"Wait, Stark didn't tell you...?" Jane covered her mouth with her hand just a second too late, just in time to see the woman in front of her roll her eyes.

"Oh, no."

"Oh, yes... I guess I do like the big, muscly type."

"Fuck me sideways, _you_ are Thor's girlfriend!"

"I thought you knew! That was also in my file, and it's obvious that someone has kept that information from you." She tapped her fingers on the table and huffed, irritated. "As soon as I get back home I'm going to have a very serious conversation with Tony Stark about the information I sent him and that he was supposed to share with you... Especially about the parts he didn't."

"Fine. When you get back home, do you mind kicking Stark in the nuts for me?"

"It will be a pleasure, believe me."

Leah was fidgeting with her fork, apparently very close to having some kind of nervous fit. "Did he really expect us to work together when our significant others have been fighting to the death a month ago?" she asked in a trembling voice.

"My guess is that he expected us to be at least polite, even if we don't like each other very much."

"Let me make a wild guess: You don't like me, do you, Jane?"

The pause lasted just a fraction of a second. "No. Even if we ignore the time when Loki tried to kill Thor, and that other time when he prevented him from getting back to Asgard..."

"We should definitely ignore all that, because I had no part in any of those events."

"I think you're conceited, cynic and selfish, and I also think you're putting your baby in danger by trying to get to Asgard."

"Then why did you offer to help me?"

"Because it's better than the alternative. I told you, I'm not especially fond of SHIELD and their methods. They're very good at taking care of alien invasions... with Thor's help... but I wouldn't let my child in their hands, even if it was a..." Jane hesitated.

Leah narrowed her eyes. "Finish that sentence, Dr. Foster", she muttered between gritted teeth.

"I shouldn't have started it. Sorry, I have no right to talk about your baby like that", apologized Jane.

"Don't worry, the little alien is still too small to hear you. And I can do civilized, even if it's just for his sake. Let's focus on working together... and let's try not to mention Thor or Loki more than necessary."

"Works for me. I have the feeling that we were not destined to become great friends anyway."

Jane held out an extended hand across the table, and Leah shook it while giving the scientist her best close-lipped, professional smile.

"Then there's nothing left to say, except that I'm really looking forward to working with you."

* * *

****June 28. Hotel Gran Melia Rome. 11 PM.  
** **

After dinner, Jane returned to her rented apartment and Leah went to her hotel suite and tried to sleep, with very discouraging results. Probably because she had spent the first weeks of her pregnancy in a lethargic state, she had a lot of pent-up energy that the scorching Italian heat had done nothing but increase. Tossing and turning in her bed, she relived in her mind the conversation with Jane so many times that the words started to lose their meaning. A warm shower proved to be completely ineffective, and the glass of milk she ordered did nothing but make her hungry. **  
**

The very spacious room had a terrace and a small private garden. She tried sitting outside, but even the distant noise of the street bothered her and she went back in. Her usual way of dealing with insomnia, a tumbler of whiskey sometimes accompanied by a sleeping pill, was out of the question; to avoid the temptation she had asked the hotel management to empty the minibar before checking into her room. Wondering if her mangled metabolism would return to normal ever again, she moved to the sofa with another glass of milk and tried watching the TV. On the first channel she tried there was some sort of singing competition, fortunately without nuns, and it looked boring enough to make anyone sleep within seconds.

About an hour later Leah was very close to kicking the TV and throwing the remote across the room, because apart from checking that her Italian was in pretty good shape she was even more awake than before. She tried a dozen other channels before giving up and going back to bed, where she stared at the ceiling wondering, for the tenth time that day, if she would ever get to see Loki again. Usually thinking about him was a good way to relax, to persuade herself that she was doing the right thing... but, on that particular night, the combination of her nervous state with the hot, humid weather and the almost forty days that had passed since she had last seen her lover was having an unexpected side effect.

Her hands slid over the sheets, to the empty place beside her where Loki should be. Her mind wandered to another bedroom in another continent, to a particular night several weeks before. A night when she had gone to sleep early, and he had woken her up nuzzling into her neck and whispering sweet nothings in her ear... and, just a few seconds later, yanked the sheets that covered her and took her with so much passion that the headboard had carved a pattern of scratch marks on the wall...

_"Could any of your pitiful mortal lovers do this, Leah? Did any of them bring your body to the point of going insane with pleasure?"_

_Her hands scrambled madly behind her, trying to find something to grab on to, and only managing to scratch the varnish from the headboard. She settled for the god's shoulders, digging her nails in his pale, smooth skin. And she didn't even try to answer, at least not with words, because in moments like that her IQ went down several points.  
_

_"If your lack of words means you are not enjoying this, I might as well stop."_

_"Stop and I'll kill you, god or no god!" she practically growled._

_Loki laughed. Not the deranged, manic laughter she had heard during his Stuttgart stunt; this time it was carefree, blissful, a sound that started deep within his chest and only stopped when he claimed Leah's mouth again in a hungry, searing kiss.  
_

_Despite all his quirks and his volatile character, he wasn't a selfish lover. And it was so satisfying to know that she could also make him moan into her mouth with one fleeting touch, that his pulse raced because of her, that his cold lips would draw endless paths on her skin if she just said the right word...  
_

_It was always like that. A game of mood changes, of quick transitions between slow lovemaking one moment and being fucked against a wall one minute later. Between whimpering quietly under him and riding him like a deranged Amazon on her way to war. He was as unpredictable as demanding, and Leah had the impression that, if it wasn't for the limits of her physical strength, he could have kept her in bed for days. He also made a show of teasing her, asking about the other men that had shared her bed before him, and to that Leah only replied with an obstinate silence. Not for fear of making him jealous, because there had been no college boy, bar fling of occasional boyfriend that didn't pale in comparison with Loki. It was simply that she had never shared her life with anyone long enough to give him her complete trust, and that exactly was the only thing she had refused to give up to him.  
_

_But none of that mattered when Loki swirled his tongue on her skin, when he took bits of her flesh between his teeth (because he liked to bite, and she always bit him back), when his delicate fingers brushed against her thigh with the rhythm of his thrusts... nothing mattered when Leah's world was constantly shattered and reformed by the god who buried his hands in her hair and his desire between her legs._

Leah came down from her solitary climax and sat on the bed, drenched in sweat. There had been no self-pleasuring of any kind at the SHIELD facility: she had never been into exhibitionism, so the idea of a dozen cameras pointing at her day and night was enough to shut down any sensible person's sex drive. And then the cold had arrived, the cold that had left her numb for weeks, indifferent to the world and to her own physical needs.

Regaining her sexual self after so many weeks was only mildly satisfying; but it served its purpose, and Leah drifted off to sleep feeling a little more optimist about the incredibly crazy thing she and Jane were going to attempt.

If only wishful thinking could open portals.

* * *

**********Asgard. Five days after summer solstice. Evening.****** ** **

The object of Leah's torrid daydreaming was pacing up and down his cell and slowly running out of patience.

The Queen was late. Considerably late.

Loki had noticed his mother's message on his breakfast tray, and it had been enough for him to be in a reasonably good mood for the rest of the morning. But when sunset arrived (although he couldn't see the sun anymore, and measured the time in Einherjar shifts) with no Frigga in sight, he started to worry.

The worst possible scenario was that Odin had found out about the Queen's incorporeal visits and done something to prevent them. Of course, no one in the realm could match her magical abilities, except for Loki himself, but the possibility still existed. He also pondered if he could have misinterpreted the message: a napkin folded in a certain way under his plate, arranged by the kitchen maid under orders of Frigga's lady in waiting, was relatively easy to misread. If the kitchen girl had folded the wrong corner by mistake, or if the guard that brought him the food had moved the piece of cloth from its original position, it could mean that his mother would be unable to visit for several days, instead of warning him of her imminent arrival.

He read half a book, wrote two letters (one of them twice, because he kept leaving ink blotches on the paper) and rearranged some of the furniture, but his mother was nowhere to be seen. Finally he gave up and stood looking at the cell's entrance... And that was the reason why, an hour later, the ethereal duplicate of the Queen appeared right behind him.

"Forgive my lateness, Loki. I would have come sooner, but there were some pressing matters that I had to attend."

"It is of no consequence, Mother", a tired voice answered. "I had no plans of going out today, it looks like it will rain."

Frigga's figure didn't move towards the chair where she usually sat, or rather gave the impression of sitting. Instead, she stood in front of the prisoner with her arms crossed and her lips pressed together. "I have something to ask you."

"It must be something of grave importance, or you would not be looking at me like that. What crime can I possibly have committed while they have me locked up here?" he asked in a mocking tone.

"It is not a subject that I enjoy discussing... and I could dance around it for hours and still not be comfortable with it, but unfortunately we do not have time to lose, so I will be blunt."

Loki's curiosity had been piqued and he looked closely at her mother. "I fail to see your point. In lieu of bluntness, you are being extremely cryptic, Mother. Even more than usual. What is that mysterious information that you need from me?"

Frigga's illusion paced around the cell in silence for a minute. When she finally turned to her son, her face was stern again.

"I need you to tell me about your friend Leah."

Only the trained eyes of a mother could have noticed the almost imperceptible change in Loki's expression. He looked away and took a deep breath before answering.

"Who told you?"

"Your brother."

A brief flash or red, just a glimpse, threatened to appear in Loki's eyes, and he could barely contain it. "He has no right to meddle in my affairs! How would Thor feel if I rattled about his little Midgardian wench?"

"I do not approve of you using that tone in my presence, Loki. Or talking about your brother's beloved like that."

"Ironic how Jane Foster is his _beloved_ after spending two days with him, but you refer to Leah as my _friend_."

"I am not sure how to refer to her if you keep avoiding my question."

"That particular matter is private, and Thor had no business telling you. Besides, you could never understand."

"I would try, if you stopped acting offended like a spoiled child."

Loki sighed and sat at his desk, fidgeting with a ball made of discarded paper and getting used to the idea that his mother wasn't going to drop the subject. "What exactly did my oaf of a brother tell you?"

"That you had taken a Midgardian companion during the time you spent in their world." Frigga spoke slowly, measuring every one of her words, and studying her son's reactions to everything she was saying.

"That is correct."

"Apparently against her will."

The crumbled piece of paper flew across the room and landed, with superhuman aim, right into the small waste basket.

"Did Thor tell you how she followed me into battle? What kind of a prisoner would have behaved like that?"

Now it was the Queen's turn to look distressed, and she walked around the cell trying to find the words for her next questions.

"Have you exchanged vows of any kind with that mortal? Did you do anything that cannot be undone? Please, tell me you did nothing to hurt that woman."

"Vows are but empty words, and there was no need for them. I may be a monster in Odin's eyes, but I am not completely heartless... I cared about her. I protected her. I would have had her by my side as a ruler of Midgard. In fact, if I had had my way, I would have brought her here with me after my defeat."

"As a spoil of war?" The Queen didn't even bother looking scandalized; her only visible reaction was the slight raising of an eyebrow.

"It was my right!"

"A right that is frowned upon, a right that has not been exercised in countless years. You had to know you would be denied."

"It was the only way to keep her with me."

"Odin would never have allowed her presence here."

"Of course Odin would have everything taken away from me, even what I want the most. Why are you asking me about her anyway? She is completely lost to me now." He turned towards her mother again, and for the first time Frigga could see a glimpse of fear on Loki's face. "If Odin is thinking of taking retaliation on Leah, if he even considers the idea of harming her, I swear I will..."

"The Allfather knows nothing of all this." Frigga extended a hand to her son , but she remembered just in time that her ethereal form wasn't able to touch him and managed to stop mid-movement, returning her hands to her lap. "Do you not trust me anymore, Loki? I was worried about you. I merely wanted to understand why did you form such an unusual attachment with that woman. You cannot conceal your innermost drives, not from me... at least not without betraying yourself."

"Understand this, if you will: I was happy with her, happier than I had been in a very long time. I miss her so powerfully that the memories are eating me alive... And when I finally get out of this hole, maybe centuries from now, her mortal existence will have ended, and the only thing left for me will be her ghost!"

The Queen had been raised to never cry in public, even in front of family. She turned around and blinked several times to make sure that her son didn't see her eyes watering, and when she looked at Loki again she was her usual composed self.

"And why did you ask for all those Midgardian books? Are you sure you will not suffer more if you refuse to forget her?"

"I will not insult her memory by forgetting her. Let that be my last gesture to her... because I have nothing else."

Frigga pointed to one of the books on Loki's desk, one that had been read many more times than the others. Its brown leather cover was already worn, the gold letters a little faded, and several of its pages had markers between them.

"Open it and read the last words on the last page."

"Have you been perusing my books before sending them here, Mother? You should have told me sooner, some of them can make excellent conversation topics."

"Read."

Loki opened the back cover, leafed through the volume until he found the passage Frigga was looking for and read it aloud.

_'All human wisdom is contained in these words: Wait and hope.'_

"Your own books, the ones I got for you, are trying to give you advice. You have been here for little more than a month; it is way too early to despair."

Loki's voice caught in his throat when he tried to speak. "I am not _human_. My wisdom has been questioned, or plainly denied, by everyone except you. Why should I heed the words of an insignificant mortal man who died two hundred years ago? Why should I hope?"

The Queen's duplicate looked behind her, a sign that the real Frigga had been startled by something. "I have to go, someone is knocking on the door of my drawing room. Loki, I cannot promise you that things will get better soon. I can only ask you to trust your mother and be patient. Can you do that for me?" she asked, not bothering to hide the tears this time.

"For you I will have patience. But I fail to see the reason."

Frigga's projection didn't stop smiling until the illusion had faded completely, and Loki didn't move or look away until only the wall of his cell stood in front of him.

He closed the book with a snapping noise, put it on his nightstand and retired to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The passage quoted by Loki at Frigga's instance is from The Count of Monte Cristo, chapter 117. Those are the final words of the novel.


	16. The Advantages of Floating in the Middle of the Sea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note #1: This part of the story should win the award to 'the Weirdest Chapter Title Ever Penned by a Fanfiction Writer'. As many of you know, all the chapters here are named after Stephen Sondheim songs... and I swear this one is too. It belongs to the musical Pacific Overtures.
> 
> Author's note #2: I know flashbacks can be a nuisance to read, but I need them to keep Loki into the story. You have my promise that there will be no more flashback scenes after the one on this chapter. In case anyone is keeping up with the timeline of the fic, the particular night Loki is thinking of would have been on May 19 (between chapters 6 and 7).

**July 8. Rome. 11:45 PM.**

Jane Foster closed her laptop in a hurry, hid a bunch of important looking documents inside a brown bag, and stashed both things under her bed before walking at a quick pace towards the door, almost tripping over the bird's nest of cables that covered the floor.

If Leah's hotel room in Rome looked modern, serene, the masterpiece of a very dedicated and very zen interior decorator, Jane's apartment was a disorganized mess, with piles of papers and electronic equipment scattered through every room, visible from the moment any visitor arrived. Not that she'd had any visits, because only her intern and Tony Stark knew that she was there, and that's why the sound of the doorbell had startled her so much. Suddenly, the idea of one or more SHIELD agents coming to interrogate her about her unusual change of continents seemed very plausible. Another possibility would be Stark, wanting to help. Jane wasn't sure which one of the two she feared more, so she just took a deep breath, tried to smile and opened the door to find the subject of her investigations carrying two heavy plastic bags full of groceries and panting like she had just ran up the three flights of stairs from the street.

"Have you had dinner?"

"Leah? What are you doing here at this hour?"

"I couldn't sleep. And I figured you would be working the graveyard shift." She walked past the surprised Jane and straight into the tiny kitchen, where she unloaded the bags on the counter and opened the freezer, looking for ice.

"You're not supposed to leave the hotel, especially at night. It's not safe!"

"Don't be so uptight! I come bearing gifts."

"Gifts? What's so important to barge in here at..." Jane took a look at her watch, "almost midnight?"

"Fifteen minutes to midnight, to be precise. That means fifteen minutes until my birthday. The big thirty-four. And because of all those calculations you're doing this could be my _last_ birthday, so we're going to celebrate." Leah finally found the ice trays and started filling two tall glasses.

"Celebrate? How?"

"My usual way would be to drag you to the street, go to a winery, meet a couple of Roman gentlemen and have them invite us to Prosecco in industrial quantities until none of us could walk straight... And then go our separate ways to have a private _t_ _ête-à-tête_ with them till next morning. But since the usual way has been recently abolished, today our drink of choice will be just orange juice. To compensate for that, I've brought a couple of pints of the best ice cream ever made by human hands, and I'm going to prepare a fantastic midnight dinner."

"You cook?"

"Why is everyone so surprised about that? I must look like the kind of person that burns water..."

"Well, you used to be a cut-throat lawyer", answered the scientist, who had never really given any thought about what lawyers did outside a courtroom.

"Many people, including cut-throat lawyers, have the bad habit of eating. Sometimes several times a day." She filled the two glasses with juice and started opening cupboards, taking out half a dozen pots and pans. "I don't mind cooking alone, but it'll be faster if you help me."

"Better not. I may not look like it, but I did burn water once."

"That's even better, you're free of cooking prejudices. I'm going to teach you how to make fresh pasta. Get me two eggs from the fridge, quick!"

In a matter of minutes, a very surprised Jane found herself beating eggs, sifting flour and running around her own kitchen while Leah barked orders like a female (and less British) version of Gordon Ramsey. A couple of hours later, the living room table was fully loaded, and the two women were sitting in front of a humongous amount of food.

"We've made enough for an army! Where the hell do you get all that energy?" wondered Jane, finishing her second serving of pasta.

"I'm having a lot of trouble sleeping these days... it must be the heat. Or the baby. Or both. Anyway", Leah continued, "now that dinner is out of the way and I'm technically a year older, you can tell me a bit about those calculations you've been doing all week."

The scientist retrieved her laptop from its hiding place, and started explaining the basic mechanics of an Einstein-Rosen bridge.

"So, this wormhole will be like a tunnel with two ends each in separate points in space, right?"

"Space and time. That's one of the difficulties, because in your case we'll be trying to keep the time variable out of the equation. The problem with this type of wormholes is that practically all of them are unstable, meaning that the ends open at unexpected times, or that they open to different places each time. The Tesseract that Loki stole was like a portable wormhole generator that could be manipulated to open into a set of specific coordinates. And, in Asgard, what they call the Bifrost is a bridge with one stable end, that always leads to a fixed point, while the other can be directed to a number of destinations. That's more or less the basic of the matter, unless you want me to explain the physics behind it."

"Boy, am I glad to have had a Trekkie boyfriend while I was in college!" Leah sighed, raising her eyes from the screen. "I suppose stealing the Tesseract ourselves is not a choice."

"If Loki couldn't do it, I doubt we can... and I suppose you don't want to go searching for it on SHIELD's attic."

"No, SHIELD is definitely not invited to our transdimensional birthday party."

"With Stark's help, I think I've managed to get enough data to figure out how to open the exit gate exactly where we need it to be. Now, the only problem left will be opening it from this side, because almost all the work on the field has been theoretical until now."

"Theoretical but possible, I suppose, or else we've been in Rome for a week for nothing."

"In theory, you can use ultrahigh magnetic or electric fields with an additional exotic energy component; that requires a massive amount of energy, and that's the reason why I have to use the volcano. We're going to move to Stromboli in a few days so I can finish my calculations on the site and place the magnetic field generators exactly where they need to be", she continued, unfolding a map full of coordinates and diagrams. "And here comes the big obstacle I'm trying to solve: I need to trigger the energy reaction at a very precise moment to open the bridge, make sure the portal it's big enough, and then keep it open for a minimum of 1.42 seconds for you to make the trip safely. It doesn't sound like a lot, but even on paper most wormholes are supposed to be microscopic and they last just a few milliseconds before collapsing." Jane finished her exposition with a flourish, without realizing that the other woman was looking more and more anxious with every one of her words. "Are you following me?"

"From a distance, but I think I've got the basics. What happens if something goes wrong?"

Leah didn't really want to know. She was naturally inclined to action without thinking too much of the consequences, but this time she forced herself to think of all the possibilities, even the most dreadful ones. She started clearing the table and piling all the dishes in the sink to hide the fact that her hands were starting to shake.

Jane looked away from her laptop and followed the other woman into the kitchen. "Well, there are many variables... Let's not worry about that now."

"You may be a brilliant scientist, Jane, but lying is not exactly your thing. If I'm going to transport my ass to the other side of the galaxy, I need to know what's the worst that can happen."

"The less dangerous possibility is that despite our efforts the portal won't open, and then you will stay here."

"Good. Let's hear about all the others", answered Leah, scrubbing furiously at the remains of sauce on the pan without looking at Jane.

"The bridge can open to a point in space different that what we intend. Considering the size of the known universe, you would materialize in the middle of nothing and be exposed to the vacuum of space. I won't get into many details, but... you would die in less than ninety seconds. Another possibility is that the Einstein-Rosen bridge collapses in mid-transport, and in that case you'd never reach the other end. Again, that outcome is only theoretical, but you could end scattered in millions of molecules throughout the entire range covered by the wormhole."

The clattering of the dishes in the sink stopped. Leah turned around, with her face deathly pale and her forearms covered in suds. "Now I know why I've never liked the 'being one with the Universe' pseudo-hippie stuff... Jane, I think I need to sit down and start eating ice cream, or I'll faint. And I've never fainted in my whole life."

The prospect of having to deal with a fainting pregnant woman startled Jane so much that she practically ripped the soapy sponge from Leah's hands while she led her to the living room and helped her lie on the couch.

"Let's just talk about something else, okay? None of those things are going to happen. I have everything under control, and I'm going to send you to Asgard in one piece. It'll be like riding an escalator. You won't feel a thing!"

Leah managed to laugh, even in the middle of her dizzy spell. "Again, you're a fucking lousy liar, Dr. Foster."

Jane didn't bother answering, and instead she handed Leah a folder with several files. "This is for you, important information. I've written down everything Thor ever told me about Asgard and his family, and some bits of SHIELD intelligence that Stark has managed to get from their database. There are separate parts about Asgardian culture, Asgardian History, a short summary of the prose and poetic Eddas... and even a report about Loki, but I'm sure you know about him more than me. You should read everything and memorize as much as you can before your trip."

Sitting up, Leah leafed through the pages and immediately started dog-earing several of them. "There's a whole file about Loki's mother here."

"Thor spoke of her a lot the first time he was on Earth. I don't know if it will be useful or not, but she seems to have a lot of unofficial influence on certain things. And apparently she and Loki are very close."

"That's good. That's very good... Where's the part with all the tips to make her like me?"

"Wouldn't it be more practical if Odin liked you instead?"

"Jane, if there's one thing I've learned about men in all the years I've been going out with them is to be in good terms with their mother. Always the mother. Besides, I don't think Loki and his father are a very happy family after that little Earth domination stunt. No, the most sensible thing will be to make this... this Frigga think I'm the best thing that's ever going to happen to her son."

"Spoken from the heart", Jane snickered.

"I can't afford to be sentimental now, Jane. I have a little alien to protect."

"Do you really have to call the baby _that_? It makes me cringe every time."

"Come on, it's not like I'm calling him Rosemary's baby! I'm not choosing a name just to make you feel better... My grandmother believed that it was bad luck to name a child before it's born. It may be one of her silly Italian superstitions, but I don't want to risk it. Stranger things have happened." She lay back again and stared at the ceiling for a moment. "Would you be more comfortable if I referred to the baby as Junior?"

"Frankly, yes."

"Fantastic! Junior it is."

Jane finished with the washing up, refilled the juice glasses, got the ice cream from the fridge and went back to the living room to check on her guest, who looked a bit less green in the face than before.

"Ice cream is supposed to be good for your stomach. Remember to eat small spoonfuls, okay?"

Leah sat up with a groan, grabbed her spoon and started scraping the surface of her ice cream bowl. "If I start getting stomach sickness I'm going to throw a fit. Food is the only pleasure I have left... and now that the constant sneezing had stopped, I thought I was finally free of stupid pregnancy symptoms."

"Don't be so defeatist. There are lots of good things in life apart from food... although you were right, this ice cream is really something", answered Jane, pouring a small lake of chocolate syrup on her bowl with a steady hand.

"Speak for yourself, I don't have any good things in life left. Apart from a few very recent self-love moments, I've gone without sex for more than six weeks."

"Well, if we're comparing sexual misfortunes, I win", retorted the scientist. "I've gone without for more than a year."

"A year? You mean you haven't hooked up with anyone since the Absolut Hunk?"

"Absolut what?" asked Jane with an absent-minded tone, scooping a giant spoonful of the vanilla flavored delicacy.

"Hunk. You know... like that guy from Sex and the City?"

"Not really."

"Oh, nevermind. Not everybody has the same TV culture. Anyway... I had assumed that you and Thor had broken up when he left. It has to be a hell of a long distance relationship."

"Technically, we never broke up, at least not forever. I guess we're sort of... on a break."

"Being on a break is awful. Look what happened to Ross and Rachel."

"Who?" Now Jane was looking at Leah as if she had spoken in a foreign language. "I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about." _  
_

"Do you even own a television set? Okay, no more TV references for you, Doctor... It's a complete waste of time. Just don't let Thor go to the Xerox store on his own the next time he's here."

Despite not getting any of the TV tropes, Jane nodded and finished her dessert, secretly grateful for having some trivial things to talk about. She feared she had bored Leah to death with of all the scientific explanations, and she wasn't exactly an expert in thinking of small talk topics.

"Look, about what I said at the other day the restaurant. The part where I said I didn't like you..."

"Forget about it. I say things like that all the time."

"No, listen to me. I think I was subconsciously angry at you because a little part of me would like to be in your place."

Leah put her empty dish of ice cream on the table with a bit more force than necessary. "Let me see if I got this right: I'm about to be teleported to an unknown world on the other side of the galaxy. If everything goes well, I will arrive there in one piece... only to be summarily executed, or thrown into a dungeon, or even worse, to find out that Loki's dead. If something goes wrong, according to what you told me, I could end up scattered all around the cosmos in a million molecule-sized bits. Sorry, Jane, but... what's to envy about my situation?"

"Do you want to know what I got from Thor on his last visit to Earth?"

"Let me guess... a 'My Boyfriend Went To Asgard And All I Got Was This Lousy T-Shirt' thingie?"

"A message. Two lines. Twenty-one words exactly, delivered by SHIELD via email, saying that he was fine and that he was sorry for not being able to visit. He was in New York for several days, and he didn't even make an effort to see me!"

"Well, to be completely fair, Thor was a bit busy beating the shit out of his brother and his alien army."

"There are cell phones. Or old fashioned pen and paper, for goodness' sake!" The scientist let out an exasperated huff. "At least you got to be properly fucked a few times."

Leah laughed so hard that she almost choked on her orange juice. "Doctor Foster, I think you're losing your shit!"

"And what if I am?" now Jane was giggling too, an understandable response considering how ridiculous the situation was. "I deserve a little fun every now and then... I'm a scientist, not a nun!"

"Are you sure you didn't add vodka to your juice, Jane?"

"I don't need to be drunk to recognize that my love life sucks. It shouldn't even count as a love life!" The younger woman slammed her fist on the table, making the spoons clink and almost toppling the bottle of syrup. "You know what? As soon as I get home I'm going to look for a replacement for the... Totally Hunk."

"Absolut."

"Absolut. And if you own a little black book or something like that you should pass it to me, I'm going to need some help on the dating department."

"Anything to help you get rid of the cobwebs, Doctor. I think you'd like my college friend Richard, he still lives in New York and works for McCann-Erikson." Leah searched for a scrap of paper and copied a number from her cell phone. "Here. Call him when you get back. I've never dated him, but he was a very decent guy in Columbia, and I heard he's still single. I hope the years of working in advertising haven't turned him into a pig."

Jane folded the paper and tucked it into her pocket without thinking. "I can't promise I'll call him, but thanks."

"If it works, you owe me one, Foster." Leah lifted her almost empty glass on Jane's direction. "To moving on. And to not falling into spatial rifts along the way", she added with a little smile.

"To moving on", Jane replied. "Oh, and... Happy Birthday."

* * *

**Asgard. Three weeks before the Harvest Festival. Afternoon.  
**

According to an Asgardian saying, there is nothing more frustrating than being powerless.

The most frustrated inhabitant of the Golden Realm lay on his bed, having exhausted every possible means of entertaining himself. On the last couple of weeks he had gone back to plotting and planning: a lengthy document entitled _New Asgard_ was on his desk, written in a secret code and carefully hidden under several unfinished letters, along with no less than seven escape plans, all of them discarded after finding some fundamental flaw. With nothing else to do, and several hours before sundown, Loki went back to his constant pastime: remembering his lover.

He missed the sex, that was a given. And the conversation. But the most frustrating thing was missing even the little traits that he had found bothersome, or even irritating. How Leah had managed to sneak her way into his good graces despite being so impertinent was a mystery that he had no way of solving, but it may have had something to do with her ability to twist his words.

There had been one night, one moment of perfect clarity in Loki's mind, when something had started to shift between them. Not their first night together, all hurried and full of mistrust. Nor the second, when the woman had gotten under his skin, angered him in a way no other mortal had managed to do before. But right after that came the first day he had seen Leah at ease in his company, the day she had read to him and shared some insights about herself.

And then later, in bed, in the dark... after the entanglement of limbs and the wrinkling of sheets, when he had exhausted his Midgardian companion so much that she could barely keep her eyes open, he had retreated to one side of the bed, not expecting her to follow. Or to drape herself over him, her cheek to his chest, her legs nudging between his own. She was warm and still and Loki didn't react, thinking her asleep. But then he had felt a small hand sliding up his shoulder and a gentle tug at his hair, and that was a level of intimacy he hadn't commanded nor requested.

Out of pure instinct, his hand had darted out to grab Leah's wrist...

_"If you are trying to smother me in my sleep, which would be very foolish of you, you should at least wait until I am no longer awake."_

_He felt her laughter vibrate in her chest before hearing it. "The word you're looking for is snuggle. It's usually a non-lethal exercise... I'm just snuggling with you."_

_"Why?"_

_"Because when I sleep with a man I like to sleep **with** said man. Not do the deed and then hurry to my corner of the mattress to be alone." _

_"You have never done this before."_

_"I was scared of you."_

_"Your situation has not changed. Why are you not scared anymore?"_

_His question was followed by a brief silence and a soft sigh."You say that I'm safe with you, that you'd never harm me. Two possibilities: truth or lie. If you're telling the truth, then I have no reason to fear you. And if you're not, there's absolutely nothing I can do to fight someone who's stronger, faster and smarter than any human, so I should just enjoy the moment and do what comes naturally to me. Considering that I'm in bed with you, and that we just spent two hours fucking..."_

_"Language, Leah."_

_"I'll work on a list of euphemisms tomorrow. As I was saying, what comes naturally to me right now is this", she finished, brushing her lips over the corner of Loki's mouth. "Deal with it."_

_"Deal... How dare you speak to a god like that?" he scoffed, more surprised than annoyed._

_A longer silence this time, and when Leah finally spoke again her voice sounded very serious. "I'm out of practice, I haven't spoken to God since I was thirteen. He never answered anyway and I had more important problems in my utterly shitty life, so I stopped."_

_"You directed your efforts to the wrong deity."_

_"No, Loki. I never got an answer because I was speaking to the void. I hate to disappoint you, but you're not a god. Gods don't exist."_

_"I am almost inclined to mistake your oblivious candidness for insolence. Fortunately for you, Leah, I know better."_

_"Of course. That's the kind of mistake only someone very stupid would make, and you're a very intelligent man."_

_"God."_

_"Whatever."_

_"You seem to be very fond of that word, especially when you are trying to end a conversation. Do you use it to convey ignorance, or indifference?"_

_"I don't know... and I don't care, so I guess it's both. We're never going to see eye to eye on the god question, right?_

_"Right."_

_"Then why do you need me to agree with you?" She tried to rearrange herself on top of him, a difficult task since her left hand was still in Loki's possession. "Am I too heavy?"_

_"You do not have the strength to hurt me, silly woman."_

_"Then, going back to our original topic, what's wrong with me sleeping like this?"_

_"Do you ever stop with your wisecracks and just do what you are told?"_

_"On the first try? Not really. What about you?"_

_She couldn't see Loki's smile in the dark, but she felt him letting go of her wrist and tracing the contour of her face with delicate fingers._

_"Fine. You can sleep on top of me if you like."_

_"Thank you, Your Majesty."_

_"And watch that lovely mouth of yours", he growled, grabbing her chin to claim her lips once more before reclining his head on the pillow._

_Leah returned to her original position, with her cheek resting on her lover's smooth chest. She dozed off immediately while Loki caressed her hair, and within seconds she was so deeply asleep that she didn't feel the kiss he planted on top of her head._

* * *

****July 22. South of the Stromboli coast. 11 AM.** **

"Sono arrivato, signora!"

The captain waved his hand in the direction of the nearby coast, smiling at the woman who stood on the deck of the ship. She thanked him in Italian and went down to the cabin, where her friend was picking up their bags and trying to make herself understood by the other sailor.

"I could have studied Italian in college", Jane huffed. "All my friends were taking it, but I wanted to do an course in Electromagnetism and my schedule was completely full. And now I have no idea of what our friend Marco here is telling me... but I think he just invited me to a walk on the beach by moonlight."

At the sight of Leah, the young man touched the rim of his cap and nodded, respectfully. Then he winked at Jane, with a tad less respect, and went upstairs to continue with his job.

"Don't worry, Jane, leave the communications to me", she answered, checking that all her belongings were in her small bag and that her dress wasn't too wrinkled. Traveling in the middle of Summer in a black dress with a crew neck and long sleeves was a bit uncomfortable... and it was also the reason why Marco the sailor had centered his efforts on Jane. "And don't complain so much, at least you're not the one who looks like an old crow."

"You look fine! It's all part of the plan, remember? As far as everybody's concerned, you're a rich Italian-American widow who wants to isolate herself here for a while after the death of her husband in a tragic accident. "

"Right. And you're my dear little sister, who is helping me overcome my grief _and_ writing a book about the changing sea currents in the Mediterranean and their effects on the marine fauna. Seriously, Jane, who's going to believe that pile of bullshit?"

"The people of Stromboli, I hope. And don't blame me, it was Tony Stark who planned our cover story... a bit too dramatic for my taste, but so far it seems to be working." Jane finished gathering her things and went up the stairs to the deck. "No one will question our presence here, they have too much respect for the dead. Just stick with the black clothes and the tragic story, and everybody will leave us alone."

"At least I could buy some nice black things before leaving Rome", muttered Leah. "Mourning looks less fake if you do it in a Versace dress."

The ship that was taking them from Naples to the small island wasn't the regular ferry that transported tourists every day from the mainland to the little town of Stromboli. Jane had chosen to rent a house in Ginostra, on the southwest part of the island, a village almost inaccessible to the outsiders because there was no public transport and its port could harbor only one boat. There were no hotels, no beaches. Only a handful of houses, set in a natural amphitheater between the mountains and the sea, surrounded by a bunch of olive trees and an inordinate number of big rocks.

The two women stood on the prow while the crew completed the docking maneuver and carried their suitcases to the port.

"Well, there you have it. Stromboli."

Leah pulled a face at the sight of the tiny village and its unpaved roads. "It's not exactly the place that I would choose for a holiday."

"You knew it was small, I showed you the map. What did you expect?"

"I was hoping it would be a bit like Ibiza, or at least Capri. But this place looks like the Pit of Hell."

"Pit of Hell or not, here we are. Ready, Leah?"

"Ready? Of course I'm ready." The woman in black accepted the hand that the captain was extending and disembarked on the dock with an agile hop. "Only problem is, I don't know what for."


	17. Giants in the Sky

**July 27. Ginostra, Stromboli. 1 PM.**

There is a very good reason why the Italian tourist guides advice not to go outside in Summer during the central hours of the day.

Jane Foster's analytical mind instinctively converted that reason to centigrade. Thirty five degrees Celsius, to be precise. Her not so analytical body was starting to wish she had chosen a different location for Leah's transdimensional jump. Weren't there several active volcanoes in Iceland?

She got up from her improvised laboratory table and checked that all the windows were open, but not even the faint breeze from the Mediterranean could mitigate the scorching heat. The house Jane had hired just outside the village was spacious and comfortable, with high ceilings and thick whitewashed walls, but in the interest of authenticity the decorator had forgotten the air conditioning. There was a line of tall juniper trees surrounding the patio of the house, and she liked working under their shadow in the afternoon, but at midday they cast no shadow at all under the merciless sun.

It didn't help that Leah had disappeared early in the morning... but, again, she wasn't of much help when it came to working on projections and calculations. Her only productive activity was cooking and making lemonade, and Jane had just finished her fourth glass of the tangy drink and had no stomach for more. With a sigh, she wiped the sweat off her brow and sat down again to finish the third round of computer simulations of the day.

"Jane, where are you? I've brought lunch!" Leah's voice echoed across the patio, along with the sound of her heels on the tiled floor.

The scientist sighed and tried not to roll her eyes when her roommate entered the lab. "I've been here all day, and you know it. Why do you have to shout like that?" She also wrinkled her nose, because Leah was carrying a parcel wrapped in brown paper, and the scent that came from it left little doubt about its contents. "And why are you carrying all that fish?"

The parcel in question was quickly transported to the kitchen, and Leah reappeared wiping her hands on a tea towel.

"The fish is part of our public relations efforts. This place needs a completely different set of social skills than we're used to, Jane. I've spent the morning at our neighbor's house, helping her clean a few pounds of sardines, fished by her sons. If there's anything that impresses an Italian woman, it's cooking skills... Maybe Mrs. Contadino didn't think too much of us at first, but after a couple of hours of deboning and filleting she's finally convinced that we're very nice girls, and I'm sure she will soon spread that opinion to the rest of the village. That will make things easier for us while we're here."

"I'm really impressed. And a little scared of your PR strategies."

Leah sat down on the opposite end of the table, trying not to disturb the mountains of paper that Jane had piled all around her laptop.

"Well, we've been here for almost a week, I think my act has become quite convincing. I also told her a little story about the time my late husband and I honeymooned in Verona; considering that I've never been to Verona and my dead husband is imaginary, I think it went really well. And you have good reason to be scared... she wants to introduce you to one of her sons. I think she also wanted to set me up with the other one, but I managed to let her see that this poor, sad widow isn't going to be on the market for quite a while", she continued triumphantly, ignoring the mild expression or shocked horror on Jane's face. "I told her I was going to take a walk by the sea, to visit the place where I supposedly scattered my poor husband's ashes the day we arrived. It was all very heartfelt."

"Where did you get so good at lying?"

"Law school. If we had more time I'd teach you, you get all flustered every time you tell a small fib."

Jane's palm connected with her forehead, a gesture that was becoming more and more usual in her. "Never mind. Just keep those things away from me, I'm not a big fan or sardines. And I hope you've washed your hands."

"What?"

"Give me your left hand, I need a blood sample." She perforated the skin of Leah's finger with a well practiced movement and put the sample into a small machine that looked like the long lost cousin of a microwave. "I have to input your genetic specifications, and also the baby's, into the magnetic field generator. If that alien DNA you're carrying messes with the parameters of the portal... you're toast."

"Has anyone ever told you that you have a fantastic bedside manner, Dr. Foster?"

"Astrophysicists don't need a bedside manner... most of the time."

"What's that other thing for, the one printing all those graphics? It's making a hell of a noise."

"Geophysical measurements; I have to monitoring the volcanic activity. If the Stromboli erupts before I'm ready to open the wormhole, we will have to wait two or three months until it cools off again, or the intense heat would disrupt the equipment."

Leah almost jumped off her seat. "Jane, I can't wait three months. I can't!"

"If I didn't know you better I'd think you're too eager to jump into what can be a very unsafe way of transportation."

"It's not that", mused Leah, biting the polish off one of her nails. "I have to be there _before_ it shows... I refuse to arrive in Asgard looking like a knocked up beggar, like I just came out of a Dickens novel."

"Of course... appearances first", snickered Jane. "Don't worry, that mountain hasn't even blinked for more than five years."

"With all the rotten luck I've been having lately, I wouldn't rule anything out."

She walked towards one of the windows, and her gaze was lost for a moment in the distant horizon. Jane checked the controls of the weird looking machine and wrote down a few notes before realizing that Leah had been completely quiet for several minutes, except for a couple of soft sighs... something quite unusual in her.

"Missing your fake dead husband?"

"Not exactly." She took off her shoes and made herself comfortable on the old armchair in the corner of the room and resuming the attack on her red nail polish, which was in a terrible state already. "If you must know, I'm missing my very real - and also very alien - boyfriend. It's been more than two months since the last time I saw him."

"I've only seen Loki on the TV reports of the battle of New York, but he didn't exactly look the warm and cuddly type."

Leah extended a hand towards Jane, inviting her to sit on the other armchair. "But I thought you had been in New York during the battle. Didn't the Avengers call for your help? I mean, you're the world expert on holes in the sky, I assumed you worked with them all the time."

Jane's face darkened for a moment.

"I got an urgent call from one of my former colleagues, telling me that a young and brilliant astrophysicist in the Dominican Republic was about to make a new groundbreaking discovery... I won't bore you with the details, but it had something to do with dark matter. I took the first plane there, of course, only to find that the brilliant young thing didn't exist and the discovery was completely fake; then, all international flights were cancelled because there happened to be a battle at New York, and I was stranded on the island for more than a week. When I finally managed to get back to civilization, everything had ended... and Thor had left." Seeing that her friend was too dumbfounded to speak, Jane continued. "I'm not sure if SHIELD wanted me away or if it was Thor's idea, but they fooled me completely."

Leah frowned and let out a low, bitter laugh.

"At least Thor was a bit creative when he sent you away. Loki left me an envelope with a note and a ticket to California... unfortunately for me, I was having a particularly reckless day and I ended up following him to Manhattan. It must be an Asgardian tradition, getting your girlfriend out of harm's way after putting her _in_ harm's way several times, just to add a bit of excitement to our ordinary mortal lives."

"Ordinary or not, all I know is that the next time I see Thor I'm going to give him a black eye."

"Let's not resort to violence yet, Doctor. At least Thor didn't knock you up... Although, in Loki's defense, he didn't have time to learn about the existence of the little alien."

"You said you were going to call him Junior", corrected Jane, with a hint of disapproval in her voice. "Speaking of that... may I ask you something? Something personal?"

"I forbid you to ask about my sex life. It was hard enough to avoid the curiosity of the SHIELD therapist... Yes, I knew something was not exactly right with Loki. Yes, he functioned like a normal human being... even a bit better than that. So don't expect me to give you any weird 'alien sex' descriptions."

"I wasn't going to ask that! But after everything had passed... how could you not realize you were pregnant?"

"My periods had always been a bit irregular, that's why I was on the pill. And you don't really pay attention to the calendar when you're quarantined under SHIELD's tender care." Leah hesitated for a few seconds, and when she finally continued her voice quivered a little. "I had always been so careful... never forgot one pill, never fucked without a condom, no matter how drunk I was when I hooked up with a guy. I even kicked an idiot out of my bed for that, once. And the only time I let go, the only time I don't take any additional precautions... I end up knocked up like a silly high school girl. It's practically the script of a bad soap opera."

"A soap opera with beings from another planet? Maybe I should change careers and write a script, I could make millions!", joked Jane, trying to lift Leah's spirits. "You know what? Let's go out. There's a trattoria in the village, the fresh air will do you good, and it will spare me from seeing those awful sardines on my plate."

"What about your simulations and measurements? Don't you have to be here in case the volcano starts acting up?"

"We still have two whole weeks until the scheduled date of your trip. Trust me, that volcano is not going anywhere." Jane grabbed her bag while Leah searched for her shoes under the armchair. "By the way, what was that thing you said before about Mrs. Contadino wanting to set me up with her son? I hope you were kidding."

"Who knows? With a bit of luck you can still snatch the most eligible bachelor on this God forsaken rock!"

The scientist rolled her eyes, for the fifth time that day, locked the door of the lab and followed Leah outside, thinking that when everything had passed she was almost going to miss her new friend's sense of humor.

Almost.

* * *

**Asgard. The day before the Harvest Festival. Early afternoon.**

The Queen of Asgard balled up the sheet of paper she had been scribbling on and threw it into the fire. If she hadn't been one of the most refined ladies in the Nine Realms, she would have directed a couple of well aimed curse words towards the fireplace, too. But, since her upbringing prevented her from uttering that kind of words, she just rearranged a couple of objects on her writing desk and sat down again, looking a little defeated.

The broken Bifröst was a very recent problem in Asgard, so recent that it hadn't been solved yet. For thousands of years, Asgardians had taken the bridge for granted; so, of course, none of the alchemists, sorcerers and loremasters of old had dedicated a minute of their time to the unblocking of a path that had always been open. Although the situation had changed, for most of Asgard's citizens traveling between one world and the next was not a situation they faced every day, so they just went on with their lives. Thor had his hammer and could jump between the Nine Realms at will, although Frigga had the feeling that he had been actively avoiding Midgard after Loki's return.

It had been estimated that regenerating the Bifröst would take at least a year, even with the artifact that Thor had rescued after his battle with Loki. To the Queen that time frame was simply unacceptable, so she started dedicating many hours of her time to the task of finding an alternate, secret way of opening portals between worlds. But, for once, all her efforts seemed to be in vain. She had already discarded dozens of magic books and old parchments, and she even had made a covert incursion into Loki's old rooms - the rooms had remained locked and untouched since his fall - but she found nothing she could use.

Thinking of her younger son left Frigga with her eyes misty and her mind unfocused. Without bothering to summon her maid, she threw a hooded cape over her morning gown and exited the palace, walking towards the now useless Rainbow Bridge. Despite being closed, the Bifröst still had an observatory... And, of course, the observatory was still furnished with a gatekeeper. Heimdall's ability to see and hear what happened in the other realms hadn't changed, and there was at least one person in Asgard with a very particular interest on what the watcher could see.

On the rare occasions when Frigga urgently needed to find her eldest son, she just had to look in Heimdall's direction.

This time was no different, and she found Thor and the all-seeing guardian at their usual place, in the middle of a conversation.

"What is it you see, my friend? Has Jane taken to traveling?"

"She has crossed the Sea of the Atlantes and now dwells in a small island, far from the big Midgardian cities. She still seems devoted to her experiments."

"It worries me to think of her alone in a foreign land", mused Thor. "Why would she get away from the safety of her home, from all her friends?"

"There is someone with her, another mortal woman."

"Ah, it must be the Lady Darcy, helping Jane in her scientific endeavors."

"No. That woman is..." Heimdall hesitated for a brief moment, something that Frigga noticed but Thor didn't. "She is unknown to me. And she is not aiding Jane in her investigations, but they seem well acquainted."

"Good, I am glad she has at least one faithful friend with her while she travels." Thor seemed visibly relieved, and he finally realized that the Queen had been at the door of the observatory for a while. "Good day, Mother. What can I do for you? Or is it Heimdall the one you seek?"

"Good day, my son", answered Frigga. "I was merely curious about the state of the repairs on the Bridge."

"It surprises me to see you here. You had not come to the Bifröst since Lo..." The golden haired hero interrupted himself. "Since the Bridge got damaged."

That wasn't the direction Frigga wanted the conversation to take, so she made an effort to smile and change the subject.

"As a matter of fact, I recall now that Fandral was looking for you. I think I saw him on the way to the training grounds, maybe you should pay him a visit. It is not good manners to neglect the friends you have here, Thor, even if you are at the same time missing the ones that live in other realms."

Thor bowed his head at Frigga's gentle scolding - and dismissal. After kissing her cheek and telling Heimdall that he would be back the following day, he left in the direction of the grounds. The guardian of the Bifröst, in turn, was busy trying to avert Frigga's piercing gaze.

"It makes sense that someone who can see everything is also able to conceal many things. The trick relies in having the good judgment of knowing what can be disclosed and what, on the other hand, must remain hidden." The Queen's voice was kind and soft as usual, but she knew from the sudden guilt in the watcher's face that she had hit a sensitive spot. She stood right before the tall warrior, trying to decipher the expression in his golden eyes.

"What are you not telling my son, Heimdall? Who is Jane Foster's companion and why are you keeping her identity hidden?"

"You have a very good sight, my Lady Queen. Maybe not long enough to reach the Nine Realms, but sharp enough to peek into a man's thoughts."

"That ability has little to do with sight and a lot with the many years I have lived. They have a saying on Midgard, that the eyes are the windows of the soul... Not far from the truth, and yours conceal most things, but sometimes they disclose others. Now, pray tell me what you see about Jane and that other mortal girl."

Heimdall let his gaze wander for a moment, deep in observation. He concentrated again on a certain little Midgardian island, where two young women had just returned from lunch and were lounging in the living room of a big country house with tall ceilings. Each of them had a book in their hands; Jane Foster was taking notes, writing a long column of numbers in an old and battered notebook. The other woman had taken off her shoes, and the severity of her black dress clashed in a curious way with the white walls and the rustic decoration of the place. When he finally spoke, his words were tentative, not knowing how the Queen would react.

"I have seen that other woman before. He was Loki's prisoner when he went to Midgard... but the reason why she is acquainted with Jane Foster, why are they traveling together, is unknown to me. From what I can see of Jane Foster's work, she is trying to find a way to open the Bifröst from her side. I doubt she can do it without the Tesseract: no matter how accomplished she may be, the science of her world is still in its infancy compared to ours."

Frigga clutched her hands together, something she often did when she was worried or deep in thought. "I have heard of that woman. What is she doing now?"

"She is reading. A book on..." Heimdall frowned, and hesitated before finishing the sentence. "Just a Midgardian book."

His brief vacillation didn't escape the Queen's attention, and she wasn't going to leave until knowing exactly what Heimdall was seeing. "What kind of book?"

"A book on what a woman should expect when she is... expecting."

The Queen's eyebrows raised, forming two perfect arcs on her otherwise expressionless face. She paced around Heimdall's chambers in silence, all the time keeping her eyes on the destroyed bridge. When she spoke again, her voice was firm and clear.

"Should one or both of those two young women arrive here, inform me first. Then Thor, and in the third place the Allfather. Remember that they are friends of my son, not to be harmed in any way."

"I cannot keep the Allfather in the dark about what happens within his realm. That almost amounts to treason."

"Almost. But not quite. All I am asking you is to delay that information for a few moments. After all... do you have any reason to believe that a simple Midgardian woman represents any sort of danger for this realm?"

"Of course not", whispered the immortal guardian. "Unless you take into account what she is carrying inside of her."

The Queen's expression darkened. "That is not your secret to tell, nor your responsibility. You have fulfilled your duty by informing me, and I relieve you of the burden of such a secret. You do not notify Odin of the daily deeds of millions of other mortal beings. All I am asking is that you do the same with this one."

In his long and faithful life of service to the reigning family, Heimdall had never seen Frigga angry, not even irritated. Therefore, he had never witnessed anything close to the imperious look she was giving him. Considering that it was the first time he'd had a disagreement with the Queen, he realized he had no wish at all to explore how much angrier she could become if she was denied her wish. His many centuries of experience told him that Asgardian men had a quick temper, often resorting to screaming matches and pompous threats that amounted to nothing in the end... but, when an Asgardian lady was cross, her quiet rage could end up burning a hole in the strongest armor. The watcher was a man well versed in battle, and thanks to that he knew exactly when to retreat. He bowed low, muttered a long and respectful apology, and didn't raise his gaze again until Frigga's measured paces got lost in the distance.

The Queen was halfway back to the palace before she could hear the end of Heimdall's gracious answer. She went back to her rooms and summoned her head lady in waiting, the one she could trust the most, giving her a series of long, precise and very secret instructions. After she made Lady Borghild repeat her orders twice, and reminded her of the importance of keeping the information hidden, she sat with her embroidery in front of the fire, with an enigmatic smile on her face, and the needle attacking the fabric with the same strength and resolve as a sword would cut through the flesh of an enemy.

The amiable white-haired lady who managed Queen Frigga's household had been doing so for more than two hundred years. There were very few secrets between them: she had witnessed Thor's impulsiveness and exile; and also the loss of the Queen's younger son, his fall and his shameful return, and how all those events had forever saddened her lady. In fact, she had been one of the few people allowed to see Frigga's tears, and there was no higher honor in Asgard than to be the recipient of such a token of friendship.

One could count with the fingers of one hand the number of things that could scare an Aesir, and of course Lady Borghild had done a good deal of battlefield training in her distant youth before taking the job as the Queen's companion. She was also the widow of an Army general, well acquainted with war stories and frightful tales. However, at the sight of Frigga's eerie smile, the elderly lady couldn't help but feeling goosebumps running down her spine.

* * *

**July 28. Ginostra, Stromboli. 4 AM.**

According to every biology manual, there are four stages in human sleep, and three of them are so light that it's extremely easy to wake up the sleeping person. It wasn't exactly like that in Leah's case: every night, since her hormone-induced insomnia had subsided, she practically fell into a coma until morning.

Since it wasn't yet morning, Jane started by whispering Leah's name, and then she held her by the shoulders and shook her gently, with zero results. A more vigorous shaking only made the sleeping woman roll over to the other side of the bed, and she didn't open her eyes until Jane thought of the age-old remedy of splashing cold water on a person's face.

"Fuck, Jane, you almost gave me a heart attack!"

"A heart attack is the lesser of our problems", whispered the scientist hastily, although there wasn't a real reason for keeping her voice down. "Remember what you said yesterday about not wanting to get to Asgard looking pregnant?"

"Hmmm... vaguely."

"Well, I have good news and bad news."

"Did you just wake me up at four in the morning to play riddles? Because I'm not in the mood for..."

"The bad news", interrupted Jane, "is that my instruments show that an eruption of the volcano is imminent in less than forty eight hours. We need to leave for the mountain right now, or there won't be time to set everything up."

Leah blinked twice, trying to make some sense of Jane's words in the middle of her sleepy haze. "I hope the good news makes up for that."

"The good news is that, if you manage to make the jump, you will arrive there today, looking as thin and fabulous as a woman pregnant of two and a half months can be. Nothing will show unless you wear one of those horrid maternity dresses that make you look pregnant even if you're not."

The only sound that could be heard in the darkness of the old house was a groan, followed by Leah's rapid breathing. "Oh, God... I have to... I mean, is everything ready? The portal and all that?"

"As ready as it will ever be. I was expecting to do several safety checks before I sent you through, but... To hell with safety, it's now or never. Hop into the shower, have some breakfast and pack your things quickly, we should leave the house in an hour."

Leah clutched the blankets around her before jumping out of bed and turning on the lights. "I packed my things two weeks ago. Let's do this."

The sun was starting to rise when the two women reached the upper planes of the volcano. It wasn't a very steep slope, fortunately for Jane, who was carrying most of the equipment. The excursions that took place a couple of times a week wouldn't arrive until the next day, so there wasn't any risk of running into a group of tourists. They didn't find a living soul on their way and no one of them spoke much during the trek, not even when they finally arrived to the departure point and Jane started planting the transport enhancers. She was halfway through setting the energy converting matrix when Leah disappeared for a couple of minutes.

When she finally reappeared, she looked... different.

"Weren't you wearing jeans and a sweater a moment ago?"

Leah smoothed a wrinkle in her gown. Her long, black, long sleeved gown that looked more appropriate for the opera than for a trip up a mountain.

"I'm not going to Asgard in jeans and a sweater. I told you, Jane, appearances are important to those people. From what I've seen they are very fond of elaborate clothing and medieval outerwear", she finished, opening a huge bag and unfolding a black velvet cloak that looked incredibly soft and expensive. "A gift from Loki. The only thing he gave me that I wanted to keep... and now I'm glad I did, at least it will be practical."

"I wouldn't call any of those clothes _practical_. It's a bit like... well... anyway, you look very nice", finished Jane, correcting herself at the last second.

Leah's sharp laugh echoed around the skirt of the mountain. "I look like the offspring of a Victorian undertaker and the Wicked Witch of the West. But it's fine, because it means the clothes are respectable, and that you still can't lie well to save your life."

Jane rolled her eyes. "At least tell me you're wearing boots."

"With sensible heels", replied Leah, hitching her skirt up a little to show her Italian hand-crafted footwear. Her friend decided not to pursue the topic of the clothes, and soon all the equipment was beeping, Jane's laptop was almost on fire and the three pattern enhancers had been set in a perfectly triangular formation.

"Once the pattern has been set and the coordinates have been chosen, you need to stand very still right in the middle of those. The countdown will be set in advance, so there will be no way of stopping it. I just need fifteen minutes to make sure that the quantum interference is under control, and you'll be good to go."

Leah sat on a nearby boulder, checking on the contents of her black messenger bag. "Jane... if you're going to push the button in advance, what's keeping you from coming with me? We're in the same situation here. We both have questions that need answering, and the answers are in another world."

Jane stopped typing and sat next to her friend. "We're not in the same situation. At least you're sure that Loki wants you to go to him."

"I can't be a hundred percent sure. I only have Tony's word that, if they had let him, Loki would have taken me with him as his... his little war souvenir."

"What Tony said was right. According to your SHIELD file, after the battle Loki refused to stay calm and stop thrashing his confinement cell until they assured him that you were safe and receiving medical attention."

"I have a file? And you've read it? How come I'm only learning of this now?"

"I had to decide if I would take this job or not before meeting you. Anyway... look, Thor can transport himself between worlds using his hammer. Instantly. Since the last time we saw each other he hasn't expressed any interest in visiting me, or in communicating with me. And I'm not going to appear on Asgard like an idiot who has chased a man across the galaxy just because we spent a weekend together. End of story. Besides, someone must remain on this side of the wormhole to ensure it's closed, and to remove the equipment from here."

"You could have brought your assistant with us for that. Or ask for Stark's help, I'm sure his people can get this mountain cleaned up in five minutes." She sighed and took an important looking folder out of her bag. "Fine, if I can't persuade you to come, at least take this."

"What's that?"

"A copy of a power of attorney I gave to Tony Stark, allowing him to manage my money. Since I'm not going to be needing it anymore, I think you should talk to Tony and have it. It's not exactly millions, but it will allow you to continue the work, to make your... your little wormhole stable. It's the least I can do after you crossed two continents to help someone that's not even your friend."

"I'm not going to continue. This is my first and last attempt to open a portal to Asgard."

"You should get down from the mountain as soon as you can, Jane. The fumes from the volcano are affecting your brain."

"What do you think would happen if a permanent bridge existed between Asgard and the Earth? How long before we get invaded by another supernatural being, another Loki?"

"There's only one Loki. Fortunately."

"Their civilization is too advanced for us, Leah. And, for what Thor told me, most of the Asgardian population, including their king, are too arrogant to understand that we're not inferior to them. We would end up being their pets... or worse."

"That makes sense. It also sucks, but it makes sense. But what about Thor? You'd be able to see him every time you wanted."

"What's keeping Thor from being here right now? Why hasn't he called me, or the rest of the Avengers? No, this time I'm sure Thor has left for good." Jane wiped her hands on her jeans, because the heat of the volcano was making her hands sweat. "When we left the village this morning, I left orders for all my things to be transported back to Rome by a courier company. This time tomorrow the house will completely empty, with no trace left of us being there. As soon as you're on your way, I will hike back to the coast, where a boat sent by Tony Stark will pick me up discreetly and take me to Naples. And from there I'm going to fly to Switzerland, spend a couple of weeks in Geneva while Stark dismantles or destroys any incriminating evidence."

Leah got up from her improvised seat and put her hands firmly on Jane's shoulders. "Fine, but promise me one thing."

"I'm not taking your money."

"Fuck the money. When all the evidence has been destroyed, I want you to go back to Rome and spend at least a month there. Forget about your work for a while. Visit the ruins, eat at the best restaurants, go out every night, get wondrously drunk, hook up with some of those gorgeous and vapid Roman men... have a little fun, Jane. Do it for me. For the crazy woman who's going to jump into space and won't be able to do any of those things anymore."

"Fine, I'll have a Roman holiday. I can't promise to have fun, but I'll do my best." The alarm on Jane's phone went off with an irritating beeping sound. "The fifteen minutes are over, Leah. If we're going to do this, it's time."

It's funny how in certain situations time seems to stretch or shrink, usually against the wishes of the person who's measuring it. To Leah, every minute she'd been confined at the SHIELD facility had seemed like an hour. And now, standing on the slope of a volcano between the three cylindrical pattern enhancers, it looked like the weeks spent with Jane Foster had gone away in seconds, and like her last moments on Earth were flying before her eyes so fast that she felt a bit dizzy. There was a last hug, less awkward than any of them expected; then the calm, professional sound of Jane's voice reminding her to keep very still and take a deep breath before being dematerialized; the buzzing sound of the generator went up and down several times, while the enhancers began their own low drumbeat. She was vaguely aware of a pattern of tiny lights forming around her, and then Jane's voice again, _Good luck...!_ this time less calm, but she didn't have time to answer because the lights were closing around her, getting into her mind, in her veins, whirring and humming inside every molecule of her body. She instinctively clutched her midsection, expecting some kind of pain that didn't arrive, took one deep breath, and let the lights take her away.

Finally alone at the abrupt desolation of the volcano, Jane Foster fell on her knees and cried, because when you achieve a fantastical scientific feat that's not only very secret but also very illegal, and manage to transport another person many light years into space all by yourself, you're allowed to be a little dramatic.

* * *

**Asgard. Day of the Harvest Festival. Early morning.**

The almost empty prison wing of the palace compound was enjoying its final moments of rest before the morning arrived. The lights on the corridor hadn't been lit yet, and the Einherjar from the night shift were sitting outside the transparent walls, all of them in various states of sleepiness.

Loki's eyes darted open, and a cold sweat crept across his skin as he tried to make sense of the burst of energy that had just woken him up. It would have been easier if he hadn't been locked up, but of course his cell included a special dampening field that dulled his magic and his senses. All he knew was that it wasn't exactly magical, but it looked very much like it. It hadn't come from the Bifröst itself, but it felt like a second Rainbow Bridge had appeared for a moment, out of nothing.

He also knew that the energy wasn't dangerous in itself, but somehow it made his hair stand on end.

A few hundred meters away from the cells, and several levels above, Leah picked herself from the ground in front of the tallest and scariest man she had ever seen, who on top of that was wearing an impressive golden helmet and a suit of armor that would have made any professional cosplayer weep in despair.

She felt a bit dizzy from the jump, especially because the soft pinkish light of the Italian dawn had been replaced by the brightness of a huge hall that looked like the private planetarium of a millionaire. The ceiling was a huge dome covered in gold, standing many meters above her, and every inch of the place was decorated with circular golden patterns, included the tall walls and the floor.

The first thing she did when she was steady on her feet again was bite her tongue, because she knew that in life there were times for the verbal sparring she was used to, and times to keep a respectful silence; she was absolutely sure her current situation fell in the second category.

Leah waited a few seconds until her heart rate lowered to almost normal, and realized two things: one, that she was still clutching her stomach; and two, that she had put on the hood of her cloak before the jump, effectively hiding a good part of her face. With slow movements, keeping her hands in front of her at all times, she lowered her hood. The man in the golden helmet looked at her closely, which in turn gave her the opportunity to see that his gold-tinted eyes were not even remotely human. He also took his hand off the pommel of his giant sword, and Leah took this as a good sign. The smallest of all good signs, that kept her spirits up for a couple of seconds until a deep, booming voice made her heart jump to her throat.

"Welcome to Asgard."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the delay in publishing this chapter! I've been having some health issues and other personal problems, but we're very close to the end of the story now. Please tell me what you think!


	18. On the Steps of the Palace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another long chapter, and once again I'm sorry for the delay. My health problems are almost solved, and I'm slowly recovering the routine of writing. Thank you for being there!

**Chapter 18. On the Steps of the Palace.**

**Heimdall's Observatory. First day of the Harvest Festival.** **Early** **morning.**

"Welcome to Asgard."

Never before had those words awakened such state of nerves in a visitor. Perhaps it was because this particular visitor had arrived unannounced, unprepared... and by completely unorthodox means of transport. Heimdall let go of his longsword, thinking (with very good instinct) that that the heavy two-handed weapon would be a bit intimidating to the mortal that stood before him. With Frigga's words still fresh in his mind, the last thing he wanted to do was scare the woman and make her jump from the Bridge, or start screaming, or any of those other things he had witnessed other Midgardians do when they got in an unexpected situation.

Leah, meanwhile, was trying very hard to unstick her tongue from the roof of her mouth, where it had stubbornly decided to remain. Trying to remember her Law School oratory lessons she took a deep breath, commanded her knees to stop shaking (with zero results, but that wasn't important anyway because her long gown blocked the view all the way down to her feet), and she finally could manage something that sounded a bit squeaky, but quite close to the voice of an adult woman.

"Am I really? Welcome? I mean... I know this is going to sound strange, but I have a very good reason for showing up here like this. You see, I have to-"

"I have been instructed by Queen Frigga to let you enter the realm", interrupted the immortal guardian in a friendly tone. The woman was shivering like a leaf, but she was also holding his gaze, and that alone was impressive enough for him.

At the mention of the Queen's name Leah looked around her, as if expecting to see Frigga appear, but the only thing she saw were two men, also dressed in vaguely medieval (and, of course, golden) armor, advancing towards her from the other end of the long corridor.

"Those Einherjar will escort you to the Queen's presence. Whatever happens to you afterwards is for her and the Allfather to decide, not me."

Leah opened her mouth to protest, but the guards were already entering Heimdall's dome, and all she managed was a hurried whisper of a question.

"Is he alive? Loki?"

Heimdall just gave a curt nod before instructing the guards to accompany the visitor to the palace, and then he resumed his post at the Observatory as if nothing had happened. The Einherjar, a little confused but clearly used to following orders without question, saluted the mortal woman with a head inclination and stood facing the door, waiting for Leah to follow them.

_They're not making me walk in front, meaning I'm not a prisoner. So far, so good._

The guards didn't speak to her or look at her in the eye, though. They didn't even seem to breathe under the shiny plates of their armor, and Leah found that quite unnerving. Keeping an eye on them, she half-turned to Heimdall and curtsied (the best she could, considering that period movies were not exactly her favorites) before following the two soldiers.

A long corridor and a set of stairs lead the three of them to a point where Leah could finally have a view the city, before descending a long downward slope and losing sight of it again. What she could see in those brief moments confirmed that she was indeed in another planet, because no place on Earth could compare to the cyclopean size of the buildings, avenues and monuments that appeared before her. The architectural style was... pompous, for lack of other word, as if the builders had been taking part in a contest to see who could make the tallest, biggest, more adorned structure in the world. The main material seemed to be some kind of yellow marble, and all the details and adornments - statues, lamplights, balustrades - were shining with gold.

_What's with this people and gold? It must grow on trees here._

The light was pale and clear outside but the sun could not be seen yet, so it was clearly the first hour of the morning. Leah wished she had worn rubber soled shoes instead of the boots, because her steps were echoing in the stone floor a bit more than discretion allowed. The streets were empty, almost completely deserted, despite being adorned with lots of banners and garlands, some of them written in characters she couldn't read.

There were a few people coming in and out of the compound of buildings that, no doubt, formed the palace. To Leah's relief they looked identical to normal humans, something a bit surprising after the otherworldly Heimdall and his shockingly golden eyes. Only the byzantine-ish clothing gave any sign that she wasn't in Kansas anymore. Her attention centered on the women, of course, especially to see if her own clothes were respectable enough. To her relief, the female citizens of Asgard favored long dresses with flowing lines... the only problem was that they also seemed to prefer light, earthy colors. She saw a lot of dove greys, several hues of yellow, from pale sand to burnt sienna, and some washed out blues and greens.

Not a single person, old or young, man or woman, was wearing black.

It was too early in the morning for the idle people to be in the streets. Most of the Asgardians she saw were obviously workers of some kind, carrying bundles, boxes or trays into the different buildings. All of them looked at her with dissimulated curiosity, and Leah straightened her spine and tipped her chin up in a silent show of poise that she hoped looked authentic.

A side entrance took her and the guards to another long corridor, this time flanked with columns, and a patio with several fountains. The inside of the citadel looked vaguely medieval but also a bit too perfect, too bright and clean, like a Technicolor movie set. And excessively big, as if this particular movie was to be populated with giants. Only when they left the public areas and headed for a lateral wing of the palace the rooms seemed to return to an almost normal size. Another hallway, another set of stairs, and they finally arrived at a hexagonal room with a small fireplace, where the guards, who turned out not to be mute after all, took their leave and asked her to wait for a few moments.

_And I'm clearly harmless enough to be left alone in a room. Could be worse._

Everything around her indicated that the chamber had been created for a woman, from the delicately carved furniture to the light blue fabrics that framed the windows and decorated the walls. On one side of the room, by the fire, stood a chaise longue covered in blue silk. Even the mosaics on the floor depicted the pastel tones and soft shapes of a pastoral scene.

The first five minutes were enough to examine the room and take a look out of the window, that had a view over a walled garden. Ten minutes more (her watch was one of the few things she had refused to leave behind) and she was almost ready to start counting the tiny tiles of the mosaic to pass the time. Finally, not knowing how long they would make her wait, she sat on the chaise longue contemplating her hands, that looked (to her, at least) almost juvenile without her usual crimson polish.

It dawned on her what was missing from the room: there was no clock on the wall, no electric lights, no sign of any electrical or mechanical equipment. The chandelier that hung from the ceiling had candles instead of light bulbs. How could a civilization like that not have any visible technology, when they had the power to send people to the other side of the galaxy?

Her musings were interrupted by the sound of steps, and Leah jumped up from her seat just at the same time the doors opened. Without squeaking, of course, because it would have been unthinkable for a door to make a noise in that perfect Technicolor land.

"You must be very brave or very stupid to present yourself here like this."

It wasn't exactly the kind of greeting Leah had expected, but at least there wasn't any animosity in the voice, despite the severe words. When she turned around she saw a beautiful and regal woman, clad in yards and yards of pale gold silk. Her mere presence was enough to make Leah feel underdressed, overwhelmed and extremely small, and not just because the Queen stood at least two inches taller than her. She had the feeling of being scanned by the lady's piercing eyes, almost as if she was reading her mind.

It took all of her willpower to keep her head high, and almost a superhuman effort to speak:

"For most of my life I've tried to be neither of those things. But a situation like mine needed desperate measures, so here I am." She initiated a curtsey, and once again she had the sudden sensation of being a clumsy and inappropriate child. "My name is Leah Channing. Forgive me if my manners leave a bit to be desired, but I don't want to bore you with unnecessary details in case you've heard of me... Have you?"

The corners of Frigga's mouth curved in a little smile, and Leah wondered how Loki could look so much like a mother that wasn't linked to him by blood.

"Yes. But I was fearing the arrival of a silly lovesick girl, and you are a grown woman." She paced around Leah slowly, scrutinizing the mortal from the tips of her black boots to the top of her head. "You come dressed like the widows of your realm."

"I didn't know if Loki would be dead or alive. Or if I would have to mourn my own death, instead."

Frigga gave a little head tilt that could be interpreted as a sign of approval.

"Good answer. You are tall for a Midgardian, that is good. Nice eyes, nondescript mouth... Your hair is shorter than what is customary in Asgard, some people may find it shocking. But we can do something with the rest of you. We can and we will."

Leah barely had time to ask herself why she was being examined like a cow in the marketplace, when the Queen spoke again.

"How come you did not bring any luggage?"

"Most of my things would be useless in this place. Everything I need is in here", she said, pointing to the black messenger bag on her side. "The rest... I gave it away."

Once again her words were acknowledged with a head inclination.

_If I'm getting the hang of the Queen's nonverbal clues, that means I gave another correct answer. You go, girl._

Reassured by Frigga's apparent good will, she started wondering about the best way to change the conversation topic and ask about Loki... but she didn't have time to run many trial questions in her mind before the Queen continued.

"Your arrival today has been a surprise. Not a completely unwelcome one, at least to me, because for the last weeks I have been considering a way to bring you here. I wish I had known of it in advance, but it is useless to complain, we will have to make do." Frigga placed one of her elegant hands on Leah's shoulder, a hand that didn't shake a bit... unlike Leah, who was still trying to quiet her nerves. "Listen well, because we have very little time alone before the Allfather arrives: I have good reason to believe that Loki is quite taken with you. However, his feelings are of little importance now, because what will determine my son's fate, and possibly yours, will be your interview with the King. My words may seem harsh now, but if you are as intelligent as you seem, and you are able to speak wisely, you can help Loki. And yourself."

"I don't understand."

"The Allfather will be here any moment. Your first task will be to persuade him to let you live."

"What?" Leah clutched at the strap of her bag so hard that her knuckles turned white.

"That will not be hard to achieve, because Thor has sworn himself as the protector of Midgard and he would never allow you to suffer any harm. The difficult part comes next: you will have to prevent Odin from sending you back to your world, and for that you are going to need a very good argument. Do you think you can do it?"

"I've been working on a speech, if that's what you're asking, but there's something else you should know before I..."

"You are with child."

"I... ah... yes, I am. How do you know?"

"Heimdall sees everything", said the Queen, as if it was perfectly normal to have a doorman with magical powers. "And, of course, he realized that two beings were transported here from your world, not one."

"May I ask what's the Asgardian society's general opinion about single pregnant women?"

"It is uncommon. And not exactly respectable, but it happens every now and then. Usually the fact is kept under wraps with a hurried wedding or by telling everyone that the child is an orphan relative, and most people pretend to believe it."

"That's going to be hard, in my case", Leah snickered. "I can't exactly pass for Asgardian."

"There are always exceptions to every rule. And that child you are carrying may tip the scales in your favor if you play your cards well. Odin may look like a frail old man, but he can be very inflexible. Begging will get you nowhere, and if he feels attacked he may react badly. I will be there and lend you all the support I can, but in other occasions he has forbidden me to speak, especially in matters where Loki is involved."

"How can I get to him, then? What will make him understand that I can't possibly return to Earth, not without risking my life and my kid's safety?"

Frigga walked leisurely towards the window, but she didn't take her eyes from the mortal woman, not one second. "Did you know that Loki was born in Jotunheim?"

"Yes, he told me... showed me his other form once", Leah answered, puzzled by the sudden change of topic.

"It seems quite plausible that a child raised by his father's enemies may grow up to hate the realm of his birth. Take a moment to think about that", finished the Queen just as the door opened again to reveal the presence of the two Einherjar from before, this time accompanied by none other than Thor himself.

"Welcome to Asgard, Leah", he started. "Mother, our visitor has been summoned to the Allfather's presence."

"Ah, then we must not make him wait. Shall we, dear?" answered Frigga, taking Leah's arm and walking towards the door as if she was leading her guest to a ball.

* * *

**July 28. Rome. 4 pm.**

The manager at the Hotel de Russie was not surprised to see a woman arriving with a reservation for the Picasso Suite. He was equally nonplussed to learn that the reservation had been made, and paid in full, by Anthony Stark. After all, the millionaire, and his father before him, had always been loyal customers of the hotel. What really struck him as weird was that the pretty American girl dressed in jeans and a well worn jacket didn't look like a lingerie model, or a Hollywood starlet, or any other of the women he was used to see on Stark's arm before he had finally settled with Ms. Potts. But twenty years of experience in one of the most exclusive hotels in Europe had taught him that the wishes of the wealthy were not to be questioned... so he put his best smile forward, dismissed the bellhop and accompanied Miss Foster to her suite, even carrying her small suitcase himself.

Jane Foster closed the door of the suite with a sigh and rested her forehead on the varnished wood for a moment. The trip from the island back to Rome had been uneventful, which meant that no one at SHIELD had realized that she had ripped a hole in the fabric of space just a few hours before. Despite the apparent success, or maybe because of it, she had been having several moments of existential doubt, fueled by the fact that she had rejected a unique opportunity to travel to another planet.

She was still lost in her gloomy thoughts when her cell phone rang.

"Hey, Princess! I got your message! What's the news on Operation Dollhouse?"

"Hi, Tony", answered Jane, making a face at the nickname. "I'm happy to inform you that Operation Dollhouse has been completely successful. Also, this is the last time I let you choose code names for anything."

"Well, congratulations on putting the first woman on Asgard: one small step for our friend, and one giant leap for interdimensional travel. I hope you're enjoying the hotel; don't forget to visit the private garden, the view is fantastic."

"I will if I can find it; this suite is so big that I fear I'm going to get lost trying to find the bathroom."

"Are you coming back to New York, Princess? You know my lab is at your disposal any time you need it."

"I don't know. I'm not feeling very chipper right now... Aren't you a little worried that we may have sent a woman to her death?"

Now it was Tony's turn to sigh. "Listen, sweetheart. I know Leah's type. If she was able to endure a week with Reindeer Games and two months in a SHIELD facility, she's going to have all those stuck-up Asgardians eating from her palm in a minute. You, on the other hand, are in dire need of a vacation, so I'm ordering you to stay in Rome for a few weeks. Have some fun visiting the city and hooking up with some smarmy Roman gigolos."

"That's exactly what Leah said to me just before leaving."

"See? Great minds think alike. Take your mind off the work for a few days and don't worry, I'll be here when you get back to work on your future Nobel prize."

"Thank you, Tony. For everything."

Jane threw the phone on the bed with little care, uncorked the champagne that had been left in a bucket on her nightstand, and opened the double doors that led to her private balcony.

"To the craziest woman in the universe", she said aloud, holding up her glass and toasting to no one in particular. "Wherever you are, I hope you can find your happy ending."

* * *

**Asgard. Odin's State Room.**

"Wait outside and leave the doors open. This will not take long."

The guards obeyed their King's voice with the precision of a mechanical clock, an Leah listened to their rhythmic steps while she took a look around her.

Her overly analytical mind had always found it very strange that, when someone arrived at a palace in a novel or a movie, they were always taken to the throne room. As if kings and lords didn't have anything else to do than wait all day for their subjects to pay them a visit, usually in a room that looked very uncomfortable. Throne rooms just didn't seem practical for daily use.

She was a bit relieved to find out that Asgard was more rational than other fictional kingdoms, and her audience was going to take place in a not too large room, adorned with (of course) golden-toned tapestries, and furnished with a golden chair that sat on top of a low platform. Not a throne, not even remotely. And the only people in the room, now that the two toy soldiers had left, were Frigga, Thor, and herself.

And, of course, Odin. Or the Allfather, as Thor and Frigga had referred to him before. A curious title... but she didn't know much about fathers, anyway.

Leah had expected him to have an imposing presence and a booming voice, like an older version of Thor. No one had told her about the missing eye, and she found this a bit distracting. The rest of him was exactly as imagined: a vaguely Viking-like old man who looked at her with contempt. He examined the woman in front of him carefully, in silence, as if daring her to commit the indiscretion of speaking first.

"I find myself in a conundrum at this moment", he finally spoke. "It does not happen every day that a prisoner crosses the realms to find her captor after she has been liberated. And yet, here you are, despite this not being your place. What right do you have to present yourself before me?"

One heartbeat, two, and she found the courage she needed in Frigga's benevolent gaze.

"The right your son bestowed upon me when he claimed me as his after the battle where he was defeated. I am not a prisoner, I'm here on my own free will. And Loki has the right to know that I am... in family way, so to speak."

"Loki has disrespected his family in several occasions. What makes you presume that he will care about you or your situation? What keeps me from commanding Heimdall to send you back where you belong? You are mortal. Your kind is nothing compared to us."

Leah could have sworn that some small muscles on Odin's face had twitched when he had pronounced the word _mortal_.

"If that's true, if fulfilling my request would mean nothing to you, you might as well let me see Loki. Besides, if you're absolutely sure that I have no business here, why haven't you sent me back already?"

"I will ask the questions here, girl. Other mortals may be used to insolence, but this is my realm, not the backwards alehouse that you call Earth."

 _Mortals_. Another twitch.

Leah was now sure that the King's intention was to send her packing, as quickly and covertly as he could, so she had to make her position clear at once.

"My Lord King, may I speak?"

_I hope I'm addressing him correctly. The last thing I need today is to be thrown in a dungeon for an etiquette faux-pas._

Odin's only eye gleamed for a second with something that could have been amusement, and he nodded.

"It's true that you could send me back right now. But I think Loki deserves at least to know that I'm here. To know of his child, even if he won't have the chance to meet them when they're born... even if he never meets them."

"If you are trying to appeal to my compassion by telling me that you are a poor unwed mother with nowhere else to go, know that my charity does not extend to the whole Nine Realms."

Somewhere in Odin's words was the clue Leah had been expecting, and she bit her lip to avoid smiling too much.

"Oh, no, I'm far from destitute, my Lord King! Several of the Avengers offered me their protection if I stayed." She raised an eyebrow in Thor's direction, silently telling him to remain quiet. "And SHIELD was very interested in helping me raise my child. They are better equipped than anyone else on Earth to deal with a being that will be much more powerful than the average human."

_Did that sound like a plausible lie...? I just hope Thor doesn't say anything inconvenient and screws everything._

"If you truly think there is no place for me here, then I will go back. Don't worry, I'll keep Thor informed of his nephew or niece's progress... After all, I don't want you to be surprised if a half-Jotunn warrior shows up on your doorstep twenty years from now, asking questions about his family."

That was it. The clue Frigga had given her, the veiled threat in the shape of an innocent sentence. 'A child raised by his father's enemies...' And it was working, at least in part, because the King's face remained motionless, but Leah saw how his hands gripped the arms of his chair. She also saw, out of the corner of her eye, Frigga's proud smile; and she knew that, for better or worse, she had hit a nerve.

"Thor, please be so kind to take your mother back to her rooms and return to your duties." Odin spoke to his elder son in a soft, affectionate voice... a voice that sounded just a bit firmer one moment later, when he called for the guards. The pair of soldiers reappeared, their identical golden armor gleaming in the morning sunlight.

"Go to the prison wing and bring Loki here. It seems he has a visitor."

* * *

**Asgard. Prison wing.**

Loki didn't need to consult a calendar or to keep tally marks on the wall to know that, several levels above his head, all the citizens of Asgard were getting ready for the Harvest Festival. It had been one of his favorite festivities as a child: he and Thor enjoyed every kind of fruit that was in season, and loved to see the streets adorned with banners and torches. Because it was a time that celebrated fertility and abundance, the Festival was especially attractive for children, as it was considered a good omen to give them all kinds of small toys, sweets and treats. More than once the young Princes, especially Thor, had ended the Harvest in bed with a severe indigestion.

Of course, getting ready for such a celebration meant that normal life in the Palace was often disrupted, so Loki didn't find it strange that his morning meal arrived a little sooner than usual. He always made a point of ignoring the guard, pretending he didn't even saw him; the young Einherjar, on his part, was grateful for the lack of conflict, and every day he reconnected the force barrier and left the proximity of the cell as quickly as he could.

A couple of minutes later (when he was absolutely sure that his disdain had been demonstrated enough) Loki reached for the food tray.

"Joyous Harvest", he muttered to himself.

On this particular day his usual bowl of gruel had been replaced with a plate of fruit and another one of cold meat. There was also another novelty: a slip of parchment peeking from under one of the plates. Making sure there were no guards in sight, he unfolded the note.

_'A visitor from another realm has arrived. Prepare to be called to Odin's presence and, once there, tread carefully._   
_\- Your Mother.'_

All pretense of indifference was abandoned. He read the note several times, making sure that it was really Frigga's handwriting and not a forgery. Then he threw it in the fire, while his mind raced uncontrollably.

It was quite clear that the words 'from another realm' could only mean Midgard. Diplomatic relations with Jotunheim were nonexistent, and the only Jotunn who knew that Loki was one of them was dead... precisely by his hand. No one in the other realms had any quarrel with Loki; they probably didn't even know that he was still alive and imprisoned. With that in mind, there were still several possibilities: One of the Avengers seeking some kind of restitution? No, they had had their chance in Midgard, after he was captured. Jane Foster, maybe? But why would he be called before Odin because of Thor's wench? It made no sense.

The only possibility that remained was both appealing and terrifying.

A discreet cough brought him out of his daydreaming, and he saw four Einherjar standing guard in front of his cell. The tallest one was holding a set of manacles, and all of them seemed a bit perplexed. Clearly no one expected him to be let out of prison, or to have another face-to-face meeting with the Allfather.

The barrier that closed the front side of the cell was switched off, and Loki held out his hands in complete silence, with his gaze fixed in the opposite wall. Whoever the surprise visitor was, he would not give Odin the satisfaction of appearing distressed.

Unless it was her.

But it couldn't be. It just wasn't possible...

...right?


	19. You Gotta Get a Gimmick

**Asgard. First day of the Harvest Festival. Morning.**

The day young Eirik Ragnarsson joined the Einherjar had been the happiest of his life. His mother had shed tears of pure joy, and his stern father had told until the last one of their neighbors that he saw only honor and glory in his son's future, and that Eirik had made him the proudest man in all the realm. After all, many lords had their own personal guard, but to serve in the Allfather's army and be allowed to wear the golden armor meant that a man was destined for great things.

Eirik couldn't help thinking about that day while he and three of his comrades in arms led the prisoner through the maze of underground corridors, stairs and passages that formed the entrails of the palace.

The fallen Prince had been kept out of the public sight since his return from Midgard. The exact description of his crimes remained a mystery. The way he had survived the Void, no one knew. No doubt the Allfather felt deeply ashamed of his younger son... and that, concluded the young guard to himself, was the reason why he was forced to endure the underground way full of darkness, noise, and a faint but persistent smell of manure which indicated that the stables were not very far away. How unfair, thought young Eirik, that his only duty for the day had been to come and go like a mere errand boy, first escorting that mortal lady to Odin's presence, and then having to guard a haughty prisoner that looked at him and at the other guards with ill dissimulated contempt. The quartet of soldiers led Loki along the muddy path full of busy people: butchers carrying meat for the night feasts, chimney sweeps that left trails of soot everywhere, stable boys (quite probably the source of the manure smell), gamekeepers, scullery maids, and the rest of the Asgardian population that, for several reasons, weren't allowed on the main streets above.

At least the lady from Midgard hadn't been taken to the palace via the subterranean route. Eirik had been taught by his mother that one must always show their best face to visitors of any kind, and the Midgardian was rumored to be an Ambassador. Or was she the daughter of a wealthy nobleman? Rumors were still few and very inconsistent, considering she had arrived less than an hour before and surrounded by secrecy.

Ignorant of the guard's musings, Loki walked in silence among the four heavily armed Einherjar. The somewhat undignified route wasn't surprising to him; of course they would want him out of the public eye, especially in the middle of a festivity. He was making a mental list (a very short one) of the handful of spells that would work despite the enchanted shackles that left him practically powerless. None of them had any offensive power, and they looked more like parlor tricks than real magic. The thought of Leah — if is really was her — seeing him in such a pitiful state angered and repulsed him to no end. At the same time, if Frigga had managed to avoid the prohibition, if he could see her in person, perhaps...

His thoughts were interrupted by a loud chorus of voices ahead of them, where a succession of at least eight carts, led by oxen, was jamming the traffic. He had seen those carts many times, when he and Thor were children and used the hidden ways under the palace to hide from their tutors, stay up past their bedtime, or sneak into the kitchens and ask the cook for some sweet treats.

He knew that the carts came from a warehouse on the outskirts of the city, where they had been loaded with thousands of oil lamps. It was one of the Harvest traditions to smash the oldest lamp in each house (although Loki had never shared the Asgardian liking for breaking things) and replace it with a new one. Dozens of barrels of perfumed oil would also be brought to the city on such a special occasion.

The only downside to this otherwise harmless tradition was for the Asgardian workers, who once a year had to put up with a jammed road, a particular bovine smell that not even the perfumed oil could mask, and the airs and graces of the cart drivers, who obviously thought themselves essential to the festivities and way above the lowly palace servants.

All of that combined was the reason why the Einherjar, with Loki in the middle, had to squeeze between a cobbler's workshop and a pile of hay to avoid being crushed by the powerful beasts, and why young Eirik had suddenly realized that there was a drool stain on his otherwise immaculate armor.

"Damn those bloody oxen", thought the guard while they finally ascended the stairs towards the main floor. "I am happy my mother cannot see me now. Honor and glory... my bum!"

* * *

Meanwhile, in the Queen's private rooms, a girl called Hertha, who happened to be Frigga's youngest maid, was having a very interesting day.

Hertha had been living in the palace for just a few months, and showed considerable promise. Being away from home didn't bother her: the job was pleasant, the Queen was always very kind to her, and her position also it gave her the opportunity to see her betrothed, a handsome Einherjar called Eirik, almost every day. But today she stood in front of her lady with a very confused expression, not knowing what to make of the orders she was receiving.

Not only she felt intimidated by the Queen, but also by the presence of the Lady Borghild, who was her head lady-in-waiting and one of the most important women in the realm. According to all the other maids, she didn't tolerate incompetence of any kind.

"Forgive me, my Lady Queen, but I am not sure if I have understood..."

"Of course you have. I do not employ any half-witted girls at my service, and you have always looked like a brilliant young lady." Frigga pointed to the table, where a blueprint of the palace was displayed, and picked up an object covered with a dark blue cloth. "What I need you to do is go downstairs, find the exact place I have signaled on the map, find out which one of the carts is carrying the oil for the lamps, and put this in the way of one of the beasts that are leading the cart."

Without taking her eyes off the map the girl nodded, trying to memorize the exact point where she had to go, and extended her hand to grab the odd looking sphere the Queen was handing her. It was the size of a small orange but strangely heavy, and from its dark interior there seemed to emanate some strange warmth.

"I do not need to remind you that the Queen is trusting you with a secret", spoke Lady Borghild, who had remained silent until then. "You must not tell anyone where you are headed, and if someone asks why you are in the subterranean corridors you must tell them you are running an errand for me. With no further explanation."

The young maid lowered her head in a respectful bow, feeling very excited and very scared for being chosen to perform a secret mission... and for the Queen, no less!

"I have the feeling that I can trust you with this, Hertha", encouraged the Queen in her soft clear voice. "I know you will prove me right."

The girl hid the dark orb in her cloak, curtsied again to the two ladies, and took her leave.

Frigga turned to lady Borghild, who had a worried look in her stern eyes. She had been the one who had recommended Hertha for the job at the palace, and while she had no doubts about the girl's discretion, she still was uncertain about her courage.

"Blocking the way will be easy, my Lady", said the elderly woman. "We should worry about the other part of your plan."

The Queen didn't seem worried in the least. "I have already told my hairdresser, who is an exceptionally chatty woman, that Leah is a distinguished lady in her realm. By now she should have already started to circulate the rumor."

"Rumors can take weeks to find their roots and spread, and we have but an hour, maybe less."

"Exactly. And that is where I need you to help me." Frigga handed her lady-in-waiting two pieces of paper, covered in her distinctive delicate handwriting. "I need you to summon these ladies at once. Tell them to wear plain clothes and no jewels, they should make every effort to go unnoticed in the crowd. The other list contains a series of items that need to be delivered to Loki's cell at once. There is an empty ebony trunk in my drawing room, that should go to the cell too."

The old lady pocketed both lists, but she couldn't help shaking her head.

"Borghild, you of all people should have faith that our strategy will succeed."

"Forgive me, my Lady, but I have many doubts. Let us imagine that Hertha does her job and the underground passages are blocked. And that the Allfather reacts as you think he will – and that part is right, because you know him better than anyone else. But to predict the behavior of a Midgardian woman, and to guess how the people will react, especially when the young Prince has been out of their sight for so long... well, it is a very long shot."

"You are right. There is no guarantee that things will turn out as I planned. But, being a mother yourself, I am sure that you will agree with me on one simple point."

"My Lady?"

The Queen's eyes flashed with the hardness of steel. "There is nothing in the world I would not do for the good of my children."

* * *

Ten minutes.

Leah took a furtive glance at her watch again. Then, pretending to fix a loose strand of her hair, she put the expensive piece of Swiss machinery close to her ear, to make sure it hadn't stopped working. The rhythmic tick tock marked a much more measured pace than her agitated heart.

She had refused the offer of a chair when Thor and Frigga had left the room, for the simple reason of not wanting to appear weak before the King. And she was starting to regret that decision, but she was also determined not to show her nerves, especially in front of Odin, who had spent the last ten minutes completely motionless in his seat, with his only eye fixed on the door. A bit bored, Leah started committing the details of the room to memory, an old trick she had learnt in college that always helped her focus. She was somewhat relieved to see that the two soldiers who stood on either side of Odin's chair felt at least as uncomfortable as her; one of them was even shifting from one foot to another, something surprising in a person supposed to be used to standing guard.

It was her excessive attention to detail what distracted her from the sound of footsteps outside the room until it was too late. Leah heard the faint click of the doorknob, and then the footsteps stopped a few yards behind her.

_On the count of three, breathe deep and turn around. Don't run, don't scream... and, especially, don't faint. It's only Loki._

It might have been only Loki but still her knees felt a bit wobbly when she moved, and she closed her eyes for a moment, remembering the different reunion scenarios she had been running in her head: Loki laughing and pretending not to know her; Loki beaten and covered in chains, on the brink of death; Loki bursting into tears and falling to his knees in front of her (that one had lasted just a couple of seconds in her mind before being discarded; it was just too absurd).

But, of all the possible reactions to her presence, nothing in her daydreams could have prepared her for what she saw. No one could have foretold Loki's furious expression, or the way his shackled hands flinched and shook with anger, or the look of absolute rage in his red-flashing eyes.

Leah took a small step back, and in doing so she realized that Loki wasn't even looking at her. His fury hadn't been directed towards her, but to the figure that sat right behind, on a golden chair.

"Why have you brought her here?" he growled between gritted teeth. "You had no right!"

Silence. Odin's only reaction was tapping his fingers on the arm of his seat, while Loki tried in vain to get free from his restraints.

"The citizens of Midgard are not under your rule", he continued. "You will set this woman free immediately."

Still no reaction from the King, and Leah finally felt that the 'don't speak until you're spoken to' rule had stopped making sense. She quickly moved towards Loki, undeterred by the guards, who hesitated to lay a hand on the foreign noblewoman, dignitary, princess... or whatever the lady in black was.

"Loki, calm down! No one has brought me here; I came on my own accord."

He raised his hands and placed a finger under her chin in a gesture Leah remembered very well. "No. You are unwell. What have they done to you?"

"Nothing! Please, can't you see I'm just..."

"You look pale. Tired."

"Well, I got up exceptionally early this morning, and then I traveled all the way here."

"There are dark shadows under your eyes, Leah. And you look... different", he persisted, still not convinced that she was in her right mind.

"Different is quite a way to put it. I was hoping to tell you this in private, but..." she looked around her, to the four Einherjar close to them that hadn't moved a finger, the other two guards who stood at Odin's sides, and the King himself, still silent despite having leaned forward in his seat. It wasn't the kind of audience a woman expects for such an announcement, so she stood on her tiptoes, whispered a few carefully chosen words in Loki's ear, and watched him go through a complete array of emotions in just a second, before he finally settled on a look of complete surprise.

"How did this happen?"

"They do teach you about the flowers and the bees here in Asgard, right?"

Loki took a deep breath. "A child."

"Yes."

" _My_ child."

"According to the tests I had done, it can only be yours. I have a copy of the results in my bag, if you don't believe–"

Several things happened at once at this point: the most important one was that Loki's lips crashed, unexpectedly, upon Leah's mouth; almost at the same time, all the Einherjar in the room decided to check the floor for dust balls (except for young Eirik, who had only kissed her betrothed once before and was secretly glad of having a chance to learn something); finally, Odin, who had remained in complete silence, decided to intervene in the most inconvenient of moments.

"So it is true, then." He seemed more offended than annoyed. "First Thor, and then you. I will have to consider not repairing the Bifröst if the only purpose it serves is sending Asgardians into the arms of mortal girls."

With the kiss broken, Loki's anger was once more directed towards the King. "If you even think of harming this woman, I swear I will–"

"Be careful with the threats you make. Especially when you have no status, no freedom, and none of your magic left to help you."

Loki didn't answer; his only reaction was to grab one of Leah's hands between his, while Odin spoke again.

"As if you had not disappointed me enough already; no doubt your time in that uncivilized place has affected your judgment. First you disgrace this realm with your treason, and now you bring scandal into my family. Wasn't it enough to take Asgard to the brink of war? Why must the House of Odin be stained by your indiscretions? I surely did not raise my sons to steal the innocence of lower class maidens."

Leah's right eyebrow shot up towards the ceiling, remembering the distant day when her 'innocence' had been voluntarily relinquished to her prom date on the back seat of an old Pontiac.

_So the old King is sort of a prude. Go figure._

"Unfortunately for you, procreation does not excuse the gravity of your crimes", continued the King. "Which puts me in a conundrum: I cannot send your... your woman back to Midgard, not with what she is carrying. It would be a risk even bigger than having her stay here. Maybe we can give her a discreet position on the Queen's entourage, but that will mean..."

"No!" interrupted Leah. "With all due respect, my Lord King, I didn't travel all the way here to be kept apart from the father of my child. If he has to remain in prison, then... then I will go with him."

"Leah, let me speak", started Loki.

"No, you let me speak. I may be a mere mortal, but this inferior being has a mind of her own, and so far I've never let anyone make my decisions for me. Loki, I can't wait a hundred years for you to get released. And I won't have this kid grow up without a father." She turned to Odin, secretly surprised by her ability to keep her voice from shaking. "If I agreed to share his punishment, would you allow us to stay together?"

"You have committed no offence. I will not be seeking a conflict with your Midgardian rulers by imprisoning one of their citizens without a motive." Odin reclined back upon his seat and waited a few seconds, enjoying the couple's anticipation. "But if you freely choose to follow Loki where he dwells now... I will allow it. You will not be a prisoner, not officially, but for as long as Loki remains in his cell you will be required to spend every night, and most of the days, with him. Consider your decision carefully, because once you agree to stay there will be no return path for you."

Leah gave the matter some thought, which took her exactly three seconds.

"I agree to those terms. I'm staying."

"Do I not get a saying in all this?" Loki asked, clearly irritated. "Are you at least going to ask for my opinion in the matter?"

"Of course", answered the Allfather, standing up and retrieving the golden spear (or was it a scepter?) that had been magically standing beside him. "Loki, do you claim this woman as yours?"

"Yes."

"Is the child she is carrying your own offspring?"

"It is, without any doubt."

The sound of the spear being banged on the ground made Leah flinch.

"Then it is settled. Take your wife with you, and stop making the House of Odin into a source of scandal."

At the sound of the word _wife_ Leah opened her mouth to correct Odin's mistake, but a sudden hand squeeze and a stern look from Loki made her change her mind. Besides, the King had started talking to one of the guards, and wasn't even looking at them anymore.

"Escort the prisoner and the Lady Leah back to the cells. And use the underground route; there is no need to feed the gossip, especially on an occasion like today when the streets are overflowing with people."

* * *

Leah grabbed her messenger bag and stepped beside Loki, surrounded by the six Einherjar (the security concerns around Loki were completely justified, if a bit overwhelming). She couldn't help admiring Asgardian efficiency: everything had been dealt with in a couple of hours since her arrival. And, apart from feeling a bit disoriented, she had reunited with her lover and suffered no harm of any kind.

_Now they'll put us away in a corner and life will continue as usual. So much for international galactic relations._

Loki let go of her hand once they were out of Odin's sight, and she didn't try holding his again. Walking hand in hand with a man in shackles was a little awkward, anyway; and if the underground route involved, as Leah suspected, some kind of stairs, she was going to need at least one hand to pull up the hem of her long dress and avoid the embarrassment of stumbling.

The procession started at the same golden hallway she had passed earlier, and then progressed through some other corridors that became narrower and less golden, until they were at the top of a stone staircase, blocked by a gate made of iron bars. Ahead and below, on the other side of the gate, came the sound of many busy voices. But just as the guard in front of them was pushing the gate open, several people came running up the stairs. Some muttered to themselves, others complained loudly, and a few of them were uttering some very colorful swearwords. A middle aged man dressed in a red livery, who seemed to have some kind of authority over the others, stopped to speak with the guards.

Leah had the distinct feeling that some kind of unplanned catastrophe had interrupted the flawless organization of the palace. Everybody was talking so loud that she could only distinguish a few words here and there, and none of them made sense: something like _oil spill_ , _inconceivable_ and _blocked_ , but also _who let those drivers in here_ and _damn those lamps and the potters that made them_.

"What's happening?" she whispered to Loki, who seemed very interested in the conversation between the Einherjar and the man in red.

Loki's answer was preceded by one of his enigmatic smiles. "It seems there has been a small accident on the subterranean way. One of the oxen that lead a cart full of oil barrels has suddenly fallen asleep, dropping to the floor so abruptly that several of the barrels have broken and spilled their contents. The result of the accident is that the floor of the corridors will be extremely slippery until the mess has been cleaned. Also, the perfume that was mixed with the oil is making the good palace workers a bit nauseous."

Leah started to perceive a faint scent, like a mix of incense and cinnamon. It was quite nice where they stood, but no doubt a few levels below the smell would have been unbearable. More and more people appeared through the gate, walking or running past them in search for an open window.

"How exactly does an animal fall asleep like that? Did you have anything to do with this?"

"I can assure you I had no part in what happened down there. But I do not believe it was an accident, either."

"What will happen to us now? Will they take you somewhere else?"

"Alas, no. There is more than one way to the cells, and these guards will not risk Odin's wrath by not carrying out his orders immediately." The smile returned, this time accompanied by a caress to Leah's cheek. "But, thanks to that, today the citizens of Asgard will behold a sight like they never saw before."

"What will they see?"

"You, lovely Leah."

Indeed, the guards seemed to have reached a decision, and started leading them back to the main wing of the palace, that by then was already full of people. The unplanned detour was taking them to the busiest areas of the building complex, and a few dozen people started gathering in groups and staring at them; some covertly, others not so much.

Since most of the curiosity seemed to be directed towards her, Leah grabbed Loki's arm and tried not to make eye contact with anyone.

"Loki, why did you tell the King that you and I had gotten married on Earth?"

"I did no such thing."

"Come on, he called me your wife just a moment ago. Why would he assume something like that, out of the blue?"

Loki's grin was replaced with a sudden serious face. "Odin did not assume anything, Leah. He pronounced us married."

Leah let out a violent cough, which did nothing to relieve the feeling of panic that was stuck in her throat. "What... why... how? Can he do that?"

"He is the Allfather, he can do anything he pleases. Officiating weddings is not his usual task, but he has the authority to do it. You heard what he said before about the scandal... From the moment that your presence in Asgard was inevitable, having us here unmarried, in your state, would be more disgraceful in his eyes than whatever crimes I might have committed in other realms."

"I must have inhaled a lot of that awful perfume, because I don't remember him asking me if I wanted to get married to you."

"Of course not. Mortals do not have a saying in Asgardian matters."

The initial surprise was slowly giving way to a slow burning anger. "So, is he going to make all my decisions for me from now on?"

"That is where it gets interesting. Since the moment you became my wife, you also became a citizen of Asgard by association, so now you _do_ have a saying in what happens to you."

"Okay, that reasoning has no logic and it's extremely fucked up."

"Anyone who heard you would think you do not enjoy the idea of being married to me."

"That's not the point! I don't know what's the Asgardian idea of personal freedom, but..." Leah interrupted herself when she realized that all the people on the street, more than a hundred, had gone completely silent, and were looking at them without any pretense of discretion. "Loki, this is starting to get creepy."

"Do not look at them. Keep your chin up and your eyes looking forward."

Leah did as he ordered, walking slowly with a steady pace, although her instinct was telling her to run. "As long as they don't start throwing things at us..."

"It has been a long time since we had a visitor from Midgard. They are bound to be very curious about you. Try to look tragic and dauntless."

"I just teleported my ass here, sans Bifröst, and then I got married to you practically at gunpoint. I don't have to try, I _am_ tragic and dauntless."

"Excellent point", he smirked. "But I doubt you have anything to fear from those people, Leah. Take a good look around you."

Now that he mentioned it, there didn't seem to be any hostility in the growing mass of people. They had reached a very busy area, close to what seemed to be an open air market: there were several stands with all kinds of food to sell, and the wind carried a nice smell of fruit and roast birds. At least half of the crowd were women, all dressed in cheerful yellows and oranges; their clothes and their hair, especially in the case of the young girls, were adorned with wheat sprigs. They seemed curious about Leah, but also unnaturally happy to see her. Several little girls playing tag crossed the street right before the Einherjar; the youngest of them curtsied in front of Leah and Loki, giggling uncontrollably.

"I have the feeling that we're interrupting some kind of party, right?"

"With your extraordinary good aim, you have managed to arrive on the first day of the Harvest Festival. It is a very important festivity, and your presence has awoken a lot of interest." After checking that the soldiers were distracted enough, Loki whispered a word in a strange language, and made a quick gesture with one of his cuffed hands. Leah felt the air around them vibrate with invisible ripples; almost immediately, she noticed that she was hearing conversations of people who were dozens of yards away. The sound was distorted at first, as if they were standing under a giant glass bell. But as they walked the words became clearer:

_"She looks so frail!"  
"She is a mortal! And she is expecting, of course she looks frail. But only in body, I heard she has an unbreakable spirit."_

_"Someone told me that she rode to meet Loki in battle, and she tended to his wounds while a giant green monster was hovering over them."_

_"But to have the courage to follow the Prince all the way here, to risk her life just to let him know that she was with child!"_   
_"Well, of course she is brave... I heard that she was born into a noble family, her father owns huge tracts of land. He expelled her from Midgard for carrying the child of an Aesir. Can you believe such cruelty?"_   
_"They are barbarians, the lot of them! She will be better off here."_

_"I heard that her hair went all the way down her back in beautiful waves, and she cut her locks as a penance for what Loki did on Midgard."_

_"Someone just said to me that she has promised to wear only black for the rest of her life."_   
_"How odd! Why black?"_   
_"It is the Midgardian color for mourning. To atone for her husband's crimes."_

A couple of minutes and some more far-fetched rumors later, an astonished Leah turned to her brand new husband and dug her nails into the sleeve of his green tunic.

"Loki, I hope you have some idea of what the hell is happening here. Are those people crazy?"

"On the contrary, they seem quite lucid... and extremely talkative. I had no idea your father owned huge tracts of land, my love."

She punched him on the arm as discreetly as she could without being noticed. "You know all those things are bullshit! I don't understand who's inventing all that stuff about me, but... wait, was that you? Are you controlling their minds or something?"

"Dear wife, you forget that my powers have been severely limited since my return. No, the only thing I have done is a simple spell that allows us to hear them more clearly. As for the rest, for once I am completely innocent of any misgivings."

"Who else could have any interest in making a Disney character out of me? Thor?"

"Do not credit my brother with so much intelligence. Look up there, to your right, on the balcony of the second floor."

Leah raised her eyes to where Loki was cautiously pointing. A tall, slender figure was half concealed behind a translucent curtain, but she recognized the golden silk gown. The woman on the balcony looked at her for a fraction of a second before turning her gaze back to the people on the street; she seemed to be whispering something, but even with Loki's spell she was too far away for her words to be heard.

"Your mother is spreading gossip through the crowd... but how?"

"It does not take much to plant an idea. Those people will believe a romanticized version of your story, because it is what they want. They have been fed tales of honor, bravery and noble sacrifice all their lives... and now those tales appear right before them, in the shape of a mysterious mortal woman in black."

"She's putting ideas in their minds? With magic?"

"No, nothing so complicated. Do you see those women in light grey cloaks in the middle of the crowd? Two to our right, and three on the other side?"

It took Leah a moment to notice what her husband's sharp eyes had already seen. "The ones moving from one group of people to another?"

"They are Frigga's ladies in waiting. She is merely using her magic to give them instructions. The people will only remember that _someone_ told them something they wanted to hear... Once the seed of a rumor has been planted, it grows without effort, and it matters not how it started."

"She's practically making a saint out of me", Leah frowned. "And, of course, making you look good by association."

"Remember what Odin said about not making his House a source of scandal. Thanks to his preoccupation with keeping up appearances, and also to Frigga's counsel, very few people in Asgard know the real extent of my actions... or my real origin. To most of them, I am still the Prince who misbehaved, perhaps foolishly, and is being punished for it."

"I see. And it will give a terribly bad image to have the Prince's wife and child imprisoned without reason."

"I expect the first dissenting voices will start rising in a few days. Within the lower classes, of course; they're always to first to take the side of the disadvantaged. But if Frigga's ladies keep doing their work, well... it may be a matter of weeks before one of Odin's ministers raises the matter of how outrageously you are being treated."

Trying to keep her newfound status of tragic figure, Leah made an effort not to laugh. "Your mother is a force of nature. She could have outsmarted the whole Borgia dynasty."

"She is merely looking out for who she still considers her son."

"How silly I've been! I honestly thought she liked me."

"Oh, she does like you. If she did not, you would have been sent back to Midgard immediately after your arrival and with very little ceremony. You may not have noticed, but she holds a great deal of influence over the Allfather. Barely enough to keep me alive until now... but that may change now that you are here." Loki adjusted his pace to walk as close to Leah as possible. "Do you see that low building with the iron plated door? That is the armory, and right under it is the prison. Our little outing is finally coming to an end."

"You seem a bit too eager to go back to your cell."

"I am not a patient man, Leah, and I have been alone for many long days." He leaned closer to her ear, so close that she could feel his breath on her skin... so close that his words made her shiver under all the layers of clothes she was wearing. "The only two things preventing the start of our wedding night are the fact that my hands are shackled and the presence of an inordinate amount of people."

"Not so fast, Casanova. Unless your world is much weirder than I expected, it won't be night for several hours." Her tone was serious, but she couldn't help smiling.

"That has never stopped me before... and once we reach our destination the first thing we will do is put the marriage bed to good use", he whispered.

"At least tell me we'll have a proper bed and not a bunk."

"With silk sheets and gossamer pillows. Only the best for the brave and loyal lady who risked her life for the sake of my child."

Leah frowned and let out an annoyed sigh. "Now that you've brought that up, before we start the marriage bed stuff we're going to have a long conversation about us, the kid, our future, and several other things we need to discuss."

"Absolutely. I am sure it will make a fantastic bedtime story."

The procession finally arrived to the armored door that led to the prison wing. The last thing the citizens of Asgard heard before the door was locked again was the faint sound of Leah's heels clicking on the stone steps, slow and steady, like a metronome. As the multitude started going back to their day of leisure, one of the young girls that stood near the building wiped a tear form her eye and turned to the woman beside her:

"Momma... can I have a black gown for my birthday?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one chapter left, and I can't thank you all enough for reading and commenting on my little story. I have the best readers in the world.


	20. Epiphany

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter, finally! I want to thank everyone who has read, commented, and left kudos on this story. Apart from that, I just want to say that I won’t abandon Loki and Leah, because their story is not completely finished. It wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t let you know what happens with the little alien! So there will be a series of one shots, little vignettes of their future. I’m not sure when will they start, but I have ideas for at least three of them. Stay tuned!

"Welcome home."

'Home'. What a fastidious word.

In Leah's mind, she'd never had a real home. Not like those from the TV commercials and the Christmas movies, anyway. She had gone from her mother's house, full of scream matches, booze and bitterness, to the relative freedom of one of the Columbia residences, and then to several impersonal, company-owned apartments in Boston and London. Even her own Stuttgart flat, when she finally decided to buy one, was more functional than cozy. She never gave much thought to the matter... but every now and then, in her subconscious, there was this little voice telling her that some day she would have a real home.

The little voice had no way of knowing that she would end up in an Asgardian cell.

Not that it wasn't well furnished, for a cell. Of course, it had the standard open floor plan one could expect from institutional buildings, but someone had taken a lot of care in decorating it, in making it look like a decent room instead of a prison cubicle.

She remembered Tony Stark, something he'd said about royalty being on top of the privilege pyramid, even if said royalty happened to be incarcerated. Well, Stark had no way of knowing how right he had been. From where she stood, Leah could see other empty cells across the corridor, that in shape and size were identical to her new home, but the similarities ended there. The bed that occupied one of the corners was big and comfy, covered in plush cushions and a gold-embroidered cover. The rest of the furniture (a couple of elegant chairs, an ottoman and an artistically decorated brazier) was crafted in exactly the same style, with an abundance of golden rivulets and dark velvet upholstery as the main motifs. From a nearby table came the unmistakable smell of very old, and probably very valuable, books. A little twinge of alarm ran across Leah's mind at the sight of the stone basin, but then she noticed a cleverly disguised door on the wall, a door that could very well hide some toilet facilities, and hopefully a bathtub.

She was about to start an exploration of the potential bathroom, when a couple of arms sneaked around her from behind, trapping her body in a tight embrace against Loki's chest.

"You have said nothing since we entered the cell, Leah. I am starting to worry."

"So, is this it?"

"What did you expect it to look like?"

"Uglier, I guess. Grim. Something with barred windows and grey stone walls with chalk marks on it to count the days, and maybe a chalk heart – drawn by you – with my name inside, of course."

"Scribbling on the walls has never been one of my pastimes, not even as a child. But I did some writing dedicated to you, in the shape of letters... I will show them to you later. And yes, this may not be grim and dark, but it is still a prison. I feel almost ashamed of having you dwell here instead of in the palace you deserve."

"Nonsense. This _is_ a palace compared with some of the places I've lived in, and you know it." She turned around to face her brand new husband, who in a couple of seconds had made quick work of the clasps on her cloak, letting the long and heavy piece of black fabric pool at her feet. "Aren't you forgetting something, Loki?"

He frowned for a brief moment. "Is there any Midgardian tradition we have to get out of the way before I can lie with my lady wife?"

Leah bit her lip to avoid laughing at the contrast between the formality of Loki's words and the husky, suggestive tone of his voice. "Your lady wife is not an exhibitionist, and I'm afraid we have company", she said, pointing discreetly to the Einherjar standing guard outside the cell. "Clearly, the person who designed these walls to be transparent had no concept of personal privacy."

"And what if I told you I have a remedy for that particular problem?"

"Wait until it's dark? I don't think you'll be able to restrain yourself for so long, considering that one of your hands is trying to find out where's the zipper on this dress."

"By the way, let me congratulate you on your choice of garments. Very proper. A bit too subdued for my taste, but you have made a very good impression on the populace. And on Frigga."

"I don't like looking like a tourist when I travel. And I'm starting to think you've lost your way... the zipper is on the other side, under my left arm."

Loki let out a frustrated grunt. "I fail to see what Midgardian women have against buttons. Or laces. And why do they hide the closure of their gowns in places where no one would look for them?"

"Only I could choose to join a civilization that can bend space to their will and build cities in the sky... but doesn't care for zippers", she muttered, taking a step back. "Loki, I'm serious this time; that guard over there is looking at us."

Loki nodded in silence and pointed to an armchair on the other side of the cell, where Leah sat after leaving her messenger bag on the floor, next to the discarded cloak. Her eyes were fixed on the golden grid that formed a translucent curtain on two sides of the cell: it didn't flicker, didn't make any sound, but somehow she knew there was energy coursing through it. Loki was also looking at the grid, standing so close to it that the tip of his nose almost touched the barrier, and making some kind of subtle movement with his hand. The energy field seemed to blink, too briefly to be seen by human eyes, but it was clear that something had changed... because, when the dark haired Prince stepped away from the wall, there was another Loki projected on it. And not only that: an image of Leah also appeared, along with a perfect impression of the whole cell, an illusion outlined on the glass as if reflected in a golden mirror. But this mirror was not working as it should, because soon the figures on the barrier started to act very differently from their flesh and blood counterparts: Leah's shadow copy was still sitting, but she had reached for one of the books on the low table and started to read; Loki's reflection had walked towards the basin and appeared to be washing his hands.

The real Leah managed to close her mouth a couple of seconds later. "You have a screensaver."

"Just a way to keep certain moments of my day away from prying eyes... and ears", he chuckled. "Those figures will continue to move and act like a bland, boring version of ourselves, and the Einherjar outside will tell everyone that the first few hours of our married life were as dull as a butter knife. Now, about that ugly but very convenient zipper on your dress..."

"You said you had lost your magic when you returned here!"

Loki walked towards Leah's armchair and crouched in front of her. "The magic I have left is dampened by that same barrier. Nothing I can do here will penetrate it. But I still can have some control of what happens inside this cell, and that is all I need for now. That... and you", he finished, holding one of Leah's hands and raising it to his lips.

"Well, I was almost sure you'd miss me... but not so much."

"Silly woman, of course I have missed you. I have missed your confrontation, your stubbornness, your witty remarks. I have missed the taste of your skin on my lips every day", he muttered, burying his face in Leah's hair. "But now you are mine again... and this time it will be forever."

"One of the things I meant to discuss with you at some point is your very antiquated sense of property. I don't have any hopes of turning you into a feminist, but–"

Her gentle scolding was interrupted by a sudden and demanding kiss, and after a few seconds she had to brace herself and grab Loki's shoulders, because the world around them had started turning too fast. Loki didn't realize immediately that his wife was getting short of breath, that her heart was beating faster than it should... until he saw that that her eyes were fixed in the wall behind her, and the look on her face was more panicky than excited.

"Leah, what is wrong?" he asked, trying to read her expression. He tried to stand up and give her some space, but she was still clutching his arm, with so much force that her nails were almost digging into his flesh. "Leah, talk to me."

When she finally looked at him again her eyes were unfocused, and she raised a shaky hand to touch Loki's face.

"I was... oh, God... I don't know how it happened, it came out of nowhere. One moment I was thinking _wait till I tell all the people in the office_ , and then I realized that I won't be able to tell anyone, ever, because everybody on Earth thinks I'm dead, and I'm not supposed to get out of here, or speak to another human being again, or..." She took a deep breath, slowly this time. "I'm not claustrophobic. I've never panicked like this before!"

Loki reached for a jar on the low table beside them, and poured water into a small golden cup. "Here, drink this. I will carry you to the bed now."

"No, wait", she interrupted, accepting the water. "It was just a moment, I got overwhelmed but I'm fine now. I'm pregnant, not an invalid... at least not yet."

"I am the prisoner here, Leah, not you. Odin will not expect you to be in this cell day and night, especially when you are expecting. Tomorrow I will write to Frigga and arrange some time for you in her garden, and also a visit to the healers. Do not be apprehensive about being confined."

"Well, I was confined with _you_ for a week, and you never heard me complain." The blood had started to come back to her pale cheeks; that and her half-assed joke finally convinced Loki that his wife was feeling better.

"Oh, I heard your complaints, Leah, to no end. But that was different. Right after we met I chose the most luxurious abode in the whole area so that you would be comfortable."

"Are you saying that you stole that monstrosity of a house in the mountains... for me? I don't know if I should feel flattered or horrified."

"Of course it was for you! I would never have given my companion less than the absolute best. I even ordered my men to give you a somniferous concoction so that you would not get distressed on the long trip from Stuttgart to your new home."

He seemed sincerely offended, and Leah wondered how someone could be so sharp for some things and so completely clueless for others.

"Okay, I have two big objections to that. First: don't call that horrible house a 'home' ever again. And second: maybe you could have started with not kidnapping me. Making me feel comfortable doesn't detract from the fact that I was taken there against my will. Don't you have the golden cage analogy here in Asgard? Think about it."

Loki let out a sigh that sounded definitely frustrated. "Well, you made Odin and everyone else believe that coming back to me had been your choice."

"That's because you took all my choices away, and left me with only one! How could I have raised this child on Earth, Loki? _Yes, your Daddy is away, in prison. No, honey, we can't visit him. No, sweetie, I have no idea why your skin is blue!_ Just picture me having this conversation with the kid, while trying to hide from SHIELD, or from the federals, or... who knows."

She left the golden cup on the table, fighting against the impulse of flinging the object against the wall. Then she started pacing up and down the room until Loki stood right in front of her, looking dead serious, and with his gaze fixed on the wall behind her.

"If that is what you think, you can have the child, leave him in Asgard and go back. Frigga will take good care of him, like she did with me."

Leah started taking a step back, but on a second thought she stopped, standing as tall as she could even though she was nowhere near Loki's stature, even in heels. "Are you saying that you don't want me here?"

"Of course I want you, damn it!" he growled. "Here, in Midgard or in the pits of Hel. But I am giving you a choice."

"Now? After you kidnapped me and got me pregnant... After I crossed who knows how many light years to find you... _This_ is the moment you make me choose? How the hell can you be so blind?" Leah's voice was trembling with rage. "You know I had a mother who didn't give a shit about me; I told you everything about my childhood... and you still think I would abandon my kid here and go back to my old life, just like that? How can you be so... so unfeeling?"

She wanted to scream, to hurl at him, to punch his chest and see if there was a heart in it, until his next words made her stop in her tracks.

"What a funny thing to say, Leah, when you could not care less about me." He didn't raise his voice, but it sounded so bitter and tired that Leah had to blink several times to hold back the tears.

"What?"

"Well, you just said your only reason to be here is because you want to protect the child from SHIELD."

"That's not what I... Loki, I don't want to lose you! That was my reason for coming here, and it will be my reason for staying. Look, I know you don't like discussing feelings, and I know you just married me because of some stupid sense of obligation, but I..."

"When have I even implied such a ludicrous thing?" he scoffed.

"You said once that love was for kitchen wenches."

"I said romance. Or, rather, the conventional idea of it. Believe me, Leah; if I did not feel anything for you, no amount of social pressure would have made me claim you as my wife."

Loki had slowly approached her again, cornering her between his body and the furniture, until she ran out of space and sat on the bed, raising her hands in a sign of defeat.

"We're getting lost in the semantics, Loki. I'm tired, I'm freaked out and my head's starting to hurt. What do you want?"

"The same thing I have wanted since the beginning, Leah: you."

"But you said–"

He raised a finger to her lips and frowned. "Silence. Not now. Let there be no more words about this... But do not doubt what I feel. Never."

"Fine", she surrendered. "But please don't make me have this conversation again. I won't dig into your childhood traumas if you leave mine alone in return. Deal?"

She received a quick kiss as Loki's only answer.

"Oh, you have to stop ending our arguments like that."

"We were not arguing... and I believe I am starting something, not ending it."

"Now, come sit on the bed with me and hold me, will you? I still feel a bit spooked, and I'm not sure that my strike of bad luck has ended for good."

"I disapprove of being called _bad luck_." Loki's protest didn't keep him from climbing on the bed beside Leah, where he started unlacing her boots with infinite care.

"It's what it is, Loki. First I got frightened to death by your little stunt in Stuttgart, kidnapped and locked up with you for a week. After that I witnessed a battle with some not-so-friendly aliens. Then I got locked up again, without you, courtesy of SHIELD. After that I had to fly to the other side of the world, hoping that nobody would find out about the little alien, which involved jumping into a hole in space on top of a very active volcano. And now, for the third time in barely three months, I've ended up a prisoner, this time in a very luxurious cell. Who said History doesn't repeat itself?"

"If I have to spend an eternity as a captive, I can think of no better company than you."

"Yes, about that 'eternity' thing..."

"That is of no consequence now, and it will not be for many years."

"We'll need to discuss it at some point, Loki. The average span of a human life is..."

This time it was his a whole hand, clamped softly but firmly over her mouth. "I said not now. I am sure we can find a happier conversation topic for our wedding day."

"All I can think of right now are depressing things. See this dress that you like so much?" she asked, running her hands over the black silky fabric. "Getting married in a black dress has been a bad omen for centuries. _Married in Black, you will wish yourself back_ , that's how the saying goes."

Loki smiled, throwing Leah's boot to the floor and caressing her stocking covered ankle. "I refuse to believe that my dear wife, with her brilliant education, believes in superstitions. What would you have worn, anyway, if you had known that we would be getting wed today?"

"Something simple. A fur coat... or a nightgown", she laughed. "Anyway, you're right: against the tradition of my whole Italian background, I've never believed in those things."

"It is ironic, though, considering that many Asgardians will see you as a symbol of good fortune from now on."

"What do you mean? I've done nothing", Leah frowned, folding her stockings (her only pair of stockings) carefully, and placing them at the foot of the bed.

"I told you before that today is the beginning of the Harvest Festival. Being a celebration of growth and fertility, it is especially dedicated to children and expecting women. But you must have noticed that there were barely any women in your state on the streets: the average Aesir can live for thousands of years, but having more than two or three children is unheard of. There are a few extraordinary cases, like the warrior Volstagg and his wife, who have a household full of brats... but for most Asgardians a successful procreation is the result of many years of trying and waiting."

"It makes sense. With a lifespan like that, if those people were more fertile in a few hundred years there would be Asgardians coming out of the wazoo."

"And now you know what made you so fascinating to them. A woman able to conceive within days instead of years will always be regarded as a miracle." Having finished with the boots and the hosiery, Loki's fingers started inching towards the elusive zipper of Leah's gown... until her next words made him freeze.

"Earth must seem a miracle factory to them, especially certain places. Did you know that the fertility rate of Italian women is legendary? My great-grandmother Gianna had twelve children."

She could practically see the blood rushing from Loki's face. But, considering the circumstances, he managed to hide the horror in his eyes quite well, especially after Leah started laughing.

"Don't panic! She got married when she was just nineteen, so she had a lot of time. Besides, I'm only half Italian, I'm sure those genes will have diluted a bit in the last ninety years."

"Fascinating. To be completely honest, I never made an effort to distinguish one kind of Midgardian from another."

"I'm going to stop you right there before you say we all look like sheep to you, or some other inconvenience." She patted Loki's hand away, playfully, and then sat up. "Hey, what was that thing you said earlier about writing me letters?"

Loki stopped his patient siege of his wife's clothing, retrieved a wooden box from under his bed and put it in Leah's hands.

"I would have found a way to send them to you, eventually. Some of them will contain things you will not like, but they are all sincere. Which, as many people will tell you, is a great feat coming from me."

There were at least thirty of them. Some carefully folded, others in a state that made her think they had been crumpled and smoothed out again. She picked a random one, leaned back on the cushions and read it carefully, smiling... until she got to the last page.

"You had three candidates to be your abducted girlfriend, and none of them was me?"

Loki hid his face in his hands for a moment. "Of course, you had to choose precisely the letter I did not want you to see. I am starting to think that you own some strange kind of magic, Leah."

"This is not right."

Loki sighed. "I assure you that I have not regretted my decision one single time, no matter how difficult our time together has been. I never gave any further thought to my other candidates after meeting you."

"No. What I mean is that I can't have this conversation lying down. Help me up, please. I never discuss serious matters in a horizontal position", she said, extending a hand. "Now, can we clarify some things so that we don't have to talk about them ever again? I'm not going to pretend this was some case of love at first sight, but after reading this I keep asking myself what I've wondered many times: Why me?"

Finally resigned to the fact that he was all the way into a serious conversation, Loki held both of Leah's hands in his.

"From the first moment I saw you, from the moment I heard the speech you were giving at your office, I was entranced. To many men in Asgard, women who are not softly and lovely are simply seen as... not women. Shieldmaidens are an exception, of course. But I saw a woman I could admire, someone who had fire inside of her as well as a magnificent mind, and you became the embodiment of the world I wanted to conquer. By possessing you, I symbolically possessed the whole of Midgard. If I was able to get your respect, your worship... even your love, it would mean that the rest of your realm would eventually accept me as their rightful king."

Leah didn't say anything for a while, trying to assimilate her husband's sudden burst of sincerity.

"I remember telling you once that it would never had worked unless you somewhat had managed to have sex with the entire planet. Even if you had limited yourself to just the politicians, it would have taken an awful lot of time." She leaned towards Loki, brushing her lips over his in the slowest of kisses, and then she rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes. "Now that we're being brutally honest, I have something to confess, too... you're not going to like it, but it needs to be said."

"You know can tell me anything." His voice was once again low, soft and inviting, and Leah had to resist the impulse to kiss him again and leave the talking for another day. She held Loki's hand and looked at him right in the eye.

"For the first thirty-six hours after you kidnapped me, I was absolutely sure that you were going to kill me."

Astonishment doesn't exactly describe what could be seen on Loki's face. If there existed an emotion right between horrified outrage and plain disgust, that's exactly where his reaction would have been. He practically jumped away from the bed, letting go of Leah's hand.

"By the Norns! How could you ever think that of me?"

"Dozens of people died in Stuttgart! And in New York! And you made it quite clear from the first moment that you considered yourself infinitely superior to us mere mortals. How was I to know that you wanted a girlfriend and not a... a sacrifice victim?" Leah's breathing became agitated again, and Loki approached the bed, kneeling in front of her, holding her waist in what he hoped was a non threatening touch.

"You were never my enemy, Leah. I may not have taken your feelings into consideration sometimes–"

"More like never."

"Let me finish. Despite all my mistakes, I never had any intention to harm you. And believe me when I tell you I had no idea you were fearing for your life. There were moments of those days when you looked content, carefree, even happy."

"At first I was trying to make good out of a bad situation. Secretly happy that you had decided not to throw me into a dungeon, or hit me, or... who knows what." Loki's only answer was a shocked silence, so she continued. "Happy that, if I had to fuck you, at least you weren't ugly or gross."

This time the silence was replaced by a mortified groan, and Leah bit her lip to help her concentrate.

"Now that I know you better, I bet it didn't look like that in your head. I bet you thought you were being magnanimous. Your fluctuating ego was absolutely sure that any woman on Earth would want you... and why wouldn't we want an omnipotent self-proclaimed God? To you, it was perfectly logical."

When Loki finally spoke, the amount of hurt in his voice would have made any good hearted person cry. "When did all of that change, Leah? Did it change at all, or do you still feel that way about me?"

"Heavens, no! Loki, I wouldn't be here if..." she interrupted herself. "I can't quite pinpoint the moment. There wasn't a specific moment... and parts of those days are kind of huddled together in my memory. All I know is that by the day of the battle in Manhattan I was completely lost to reason."

She hooked her arms around Loki's neck and rested her forehead against his.

"Well, I think we've gotten all the ugly things out of the way. And I can definitely say that if you think I'm ever going to leave you... well, you have no idea how clingy an Italian woman can be."

He responded with one of his little smiles, at last. "What I want to leave perfectly clear is that I will always be the way I am now. I am not gentle. I am not... kind."

"Good, because I've never expected you to change. Well, not much, at least. But it's a woman's second nature to try and change our men, even when we know it's a lost cause." She was smiling too, as if some heavy weight had been lifted from the air around them; Loki took that as an invitation to climb on the bed and embrace his wife, and even to continue with her interrupted undressing.

"Sometimes I wish I had seduced you properly when we first met. But there was no time."

"And how would you have done the seduction, exactly?" asked Leah, with a playful wink.

"I would have introduced myself to you after you finished your work day. We would have had a bottle of the best wine Midgard had to offer, and a long conversation."

"And then things would have ended with a long night of passionate sex?"

"Splendid! We have been married for barely an hour and you are already able to read my mind", he whispered in her ear, while his fingers grazed over the skin of her bare knee.

"Well, if you think about it... we _did_ have a long conversation. And a drink; no, several drinks, although I was the only one with a glass in my hand. And then the night ended exactly the way you described, so I guess the final result would have been the same... minus the blackmail."

"That is the point that taints our whole relationship."

"Just one question, and then we can avoid speaking of this ever again: if I had said no in a definite way, if I had refused you even after all the blackmail and the tricks... what would have happened?"

"I told you before that I have no use for an unwilling lover. You would have been set free. Probably."

"Probably?"

"I can be extremely persuasive, my love. But must we go over this matter again? Now you are just being petty."

"And you are tickling my leg, and you know I don't like that", she answered with a mockery of a pout. "I once had a boyfriend who tickled me for fun, and one day he made me so nervous that I accidentally kicked him on the head. Thank God I wasn't wearing shoes, or he would have ended at the ER."

"Ah. Sometimes I wish I had killed all the men who had you before we met."

"I'm not one to brag, but that would take you a really long time. And a lot of effort, because I'm quite sure at least one of them is in jail... Oh, look, it seems I have a type. But he got in for embezzling funds, which is a very boring crime, and I'm sure the Cape Vincent Correctional Facility is not nearly as glamorous as the cells here in Asgard."

Loki studied her expression closely for a moment. "Tell me something about that criminal former lover of yours... did he ever made you feel anything like this?" he asked, breathing warm air on her neck before his teeth nipped her skin, inching towards a certain weak point under her ear.

Leah's answer was a low moan and a gentle tug of Loki's hair. "You have no idea how I've missed you... it's been too long."

"Sixty-eight days, to be precise."

"To hell with precision, Loki. I need you to touch me or I'll go insane."

"Oh, I will do much more that just touching you." He gathered up her long gown and let his hands wander under it. Traveling up her calves, grabbing the soft flesh of her thighs. The way his fingers caressed her skin was more delicate than ever, as if she was made of thin glass. His lips moved to her throat again, while at the same time he finally managed to remove Leah's dress completely.

Lying on the bed with just a silk slip over her underwear, Leah stretched lazily, like a cat, putting on a show for the man that hovered over her.

"Not fair, Loki. You're completely dressed, and I need you naked for most of the things we're supposed to do next", she purred.

Loki laughed and pulled his tunic over his head. "I am going to need a list of those things, my love. A very detailed one", he added, taking off the rest of his clothes with a few swift, precise movements. Leah licked her lips, taking a moment to make sure that Loki's lean, beautiful physique looked exactly the same as she remembered... down to the part she was craving the most.

"Well, first things first... Do you remember the first time you kissed me? I thought my lips would be bruised for days."

"I remember. In retrospective, I know I should not have treated you like–"

"I want you to kiss me like that again", Leah interrupted, but she didn't have time to add more details to her instructions before the weight of her husband pinned her to the bed and he captured her lips with his. His initial carefulness was turning into passion, and in a few moments she felt dizzy again... but not from panic this time. When he finally let go of her mouth, the desire in his eyes was so obvious that it made Leah blush.

"Now you are the one who is overdressed", he stated in a velvety voice, stroking his thumb over her silk covered nipple. "And I know you do not like your clothes being torn to pieces, but I am feeling especially impatient today."

"This time it's out of necessity, since these are my only clothes... plus a change of underwear I have in my bag. Take them off gently or I will stop playing with you."

Loki's only answer was parting her legs with his knee and insinuating himself between them. "Oh, I will be extremely gentle... with your garments."

The black silk slid off Leah's skin easily, followed by the bits of lace of her underwear, and the suddenly cold air made her shiver until Loki pressed his erection against her center. She grabbed his shoulders again, raking her nails over his impossibly smooth skin, wanting him to get closer, much... much closer.

His own hands ghosted over her now exposed breast, followed by a hungry mouth. That was what made Leah arch her back and wail, lifting her body off the mattress in an effort to follow even the smallest of Loki's movements. And he moved with precision, as always, despite the urgency she could see in his eyes. No other man had drawn and memorized the map of her erogenous zones like him. Nobody else's fingers could find so easily their way between her legs, digging and curling into her wet heat below, while his mouth above left a row of faint red marks along her throat.

"Please, please..." was all Leah managed to say before another kiss left her breathless, and this time she put her head in the game and responded by nibbling softly at Loki's lip. Now it was time for her to make a move. Her hands roamed over the hard plains of his chest, down his stomach, and finally down the faint trail of hair until she found him hard and ready and encircled his hard length in her palm, making him hiss.

"Not yet, lovely... Not until I have made you scream."

And scream she did, more than twice; first when Loki drew a path of kisses down her body, because it took her by surprise and she had forgotten how cold her lover's lips were. Then again a moment later, when he pressed the flat of his tongue against her wetness, starting a subtle dance of swirls and licks that made her angle her hips in an effort to keep him going. The third and last scream was a cry of mercy, a yelped _oh fuck_ , the sound of her body surrendering to the waves of pleasure that coursed through her.

"As eloquent as ever, lovely Leah", she heard in the distance, beyond the hazy fog of her climax.

"Come up here now and let me make _you_ sing, my Lord and husband", she answered with what little voice she had left.

Whether it was the voice or the words themselves she didn't know, but less than a second later Loki was kissing her again, settling himself between her thighs. He hooked her knees around his arms and spread her open, taking a moment to admire the way her hair fanned out on the pillow, the way her eyes darkened with want. He'd had in mind a slower, sweeter lovemaking, something suitable for the occasion of being husband and wife for the first time. It wasn't until that moment when he realized the importance of being just Loki and Leah, and that their names and status meant nothing in the throes of passion.

Leah let out a soft sigh when Loki thrust home and threw her head back, savoring the almost forgotten pleasure of having him buried within her after the long period of abstinence. The thrusts were long at first, slow, making up for lost time by pretending they had all the time in the world. He sensed the start of her second orgasm before she did and shifted his angle slightly, hitting the point inside her that sent a wave of delicious heat all over her limbs. And then he started moving faster, harder, plunging into her with abandon as her body clenched and released around him.

Loki's climax arrived in a powerful rush. Leah heard him growl, and pant, and mutter something that sounded like _mine forever_ , but her conscious mind was too busy trying not to explode from the pleasure to pay attention to those, or any other, words. With her eyes closed, concentrating to regain his senses for a moment, she felt him roll off and pull the covers up before the cold air got to her again. Soon his arms were wrapped around her, like a Venus flytrap, and his breathing returned to its usual slow rhythm.

Leah squirmed a little in Loki's arms, because she wasn't tired or sleepy. Her jetlagged body still wasn't used to the time change, and for her it was barely midday.

"Will you stop moving, woman? I do not remember you being so agitated the other times."

She sat up against the headboard. "I've had this weird bursts of energy for weeks. It's the pregnancy, so you can't complain because it's technically your fault."

Loki rolled his eyes at her, but she could see he was trying not to laugh. "Well then, let us get dressed and have something to eat. I know how much you enjoy good food, and if we are lucky maybe you will find that Frigga has bribed the cook a bit more than usual."

"Well, it's a pity I can't cook in here... but, on the other hand, it's less work for me." She grabbed one of the sheets and wrapped it around her. "Loki, I've been meaning to ask you... How did your mother know about me? She seemed to know exactly who I was even before I arrived."

Loki got up from the bed, not worrying a bit about his nakedness, and grabbed a tray with fruit from the table.

"It was not my intention to expose you, believe me, and I kept silence about you for the sake of your own safety. But Thor ratted me out and I had to tell Frigga." He set the fruit on the nightstand, and then his attention wandered to an object he hadn't noticed before. "Ah, but there we have another proof that my mother has taken a liking to you. Do you see that small trunk at the foot of the bed? I believe it is a gift for you."

Leah jumped off the bed, holding onto the sheet with one hand. "How do you know?"

"The rune engraved on the lid is the initial of your name."

"My name or yours? We have the same initial. But I've been here only for a couple of hours. How could she...?"

"Open it."

Not wanting to argue so soon again after making love, she opened the trunk to reveal a small sea of fabric. On top of everything there was a gorgeous velvet gown, crafted in the loose, flowing style of the clothes she had seen on the other Asgardian women, and embroidered with tiny silvery beads. Under it there were several more dresses, two chemises, two pairs of shoes and an assortment of stockings, nightgowns and petticoats... all of them black, of course. At the bottom of the trunk there was another smaller box containing a fan, some ribbons, a flask that looked like a picture she had seen once of a vial of smelling salts, and several little round pots.

"Is this what I think it is?" she asked, opening one of them. "Some kind of... rouge? Makeup?"

"It appears to be. I am sure Frigga thought it would be an appropriate gift for you."

"Your mother just gave me makeup. I'm going to love that woman forever", she laughed.

"I am glad you think that way, because she can be a powerful ally."

"And I'm going to need an ally while I'm here, right?" Leah sat on the carpet and started putting all her new things back into the box. She was serious again. "Loki, how am I going to live here when I don't know anything about this world? I can't even name the days of the week, or the Nine Realms! I'm sure there are kindergarten kids who know more than me."

Loki, who finally had deemed appropriate to put his pants back on, crouched beside her. "Mortals are creatures of habit. If I remember correctly, you have resided in several different places of Midgard, and you adapted to all of them."

"Do you think I can do it again... that I can get used to this?"

She chose a simple black dress from the trunk and put it on, not bothering with any underwear.

"Answer me this, Leah: If you had conformed to what was expected of you since birth, where would you be now?"

"That's easy. I'd still be in Newark. I'd be an accountant, or a real estate agent... or maybe a soccer mum. Married to an insipid jerk who would work in the City, screw his secretary and not pay any attention to me. And I'd probably spend most of my days drunk out of my ass."

"Look where you are now. What you have become. And, if attention is what you need... you have all of mine, now and for the years to come."

"For once in my life, I think you're right. Yes. I will adapt."

"Just tell me what do you need to make your life better, and I will make it happen. I intend to make you perfectly happy here."

Leah shook her head with a sad smile. "No one is perfectly happy, Loki. No one is perfectly _anything_ , because perfection doesn't exist. I've decided that Asgard will be my home, but I will always be a stranger here, and a scientific curiosity on Earth. No, not Earth... Midgard. I need to start using the right words."

"See? You are already getting used to the way we speak. And with the... publicity Frigga has provided, I believe that you will soon have Asgard at your feet."

"You mean at yours, Loki. Your mother is very enthusiastic about my presence here because I can help your cause. The rest of the people have a new circus creature to admire, and they will like me as long as I'm exotic and interesting enough for their tastes. And Odin just wants me to remain here so that he can keep an eye on Junior."

"Junior?"

"The kid."

"We are not going to call my son that."

"You know, it could be a girl." Leah smiled and let her gaze wander, looking at some point beyond the cell's walls. "I _want_ it to be a girl. An incredibly beautiful girl with green eyes."

Loki helped her get up from the carpet where she had been sitting, and led her back to the bed.

"You left one person out of your list. Are you still doubtful of _my_ reasons for wanting you here?"

"No, I haven't forgotten that: At first I was some kind of anthropologic personification of Earth that you wanted to conquer. And then... I guess my arts of seduction won you over. Or my cooking."

"You are going to have my child. Do you know what that means?"

"That in a few months I'll be the size of an elephant and you won't like me anymore?"

"Stop being silly, Leah." He brought the palm of her hand to his lips in a gesture that Leah remembered very well. "You will always be the same to me no matter what you look like. The mere thought that I could be so fickle offends me. If I said that I did not miss you... that my days have not been too empty and my bed did not seem too wide without you, I would be lying."

"You're supposed to be a very good liar."

"Not when it concerns you. Or my child."

"Our child. I promise to tone down the snark if you make an effort to work on those pronouns."

" _Our_ child, with the right pronoun if you like, may end up reigning over Asgard one day, woman."

"Ah, there it is again."

"What do you mean?"

"I've realized that every time you call me _woman_ it's because I've said something that you find amusing, but you try to disguise it with a fake irritation. Just like now."

"Have you considered the idea that my irritation may not be fake?" Loki remarked with a half-smile. "Ah, Norns. If only I had been furnished with an obedient wife..."

"And what would you want with an obedient wife? Die of boredom while you watch her mend your socks and tell you how wonderful you are night and day?" She caressed Loki's cheek and flexed her fingers, just a bit, so that the tip of her nails pressed against her husband's skin. "What if I don't want our kid to be king or queen or... whatever? And how is that supposed to happen when you have an older brother with better right than you?"

Loki reached for the fruit tray and grabbed something that looked halfway between a cherry and a miniature peach.

"There is no way of knowing what the future will bring, and it would not be the first time that the line of a king is broken and a new one starts. In any case, if Thor fathers a boy with Jane Foster... or with any other, then our daughter can–"

"Ah, now you want a daughter! I've been here for five minutes and you're already playing dynastic chess with our unborn baby?"

"It is never too soon to start looking at the future." Loki started peeling the fruit with a small penknife he wasn't supposed to own. "Leah, you have to understand that if I had my way you would be queen to me, not wife."

"Many things could be wrong if you had your way... The most important of all is that I would have made an awful queen, and we would argue even more than we do now. But the truth is that I don't need a crown in my life, Loki; I made a very well thought decision, I chose you even when you were defeated and imprisoned, and I hope it means that from now on things can only get better."

Leah's speech earned her a kiss on the forehead and a surprisingly tender look from her husband.

"Just promise me one thing, woman."

"Whatever you want... if you stop calling me that."

"Choose me with your heart this time, Leah, not with your mind."

"Oh, but that would be terribly foolish of me."

"Then do it, and let us be foolish together." He arranged the cushions on the bed and lay back, with his arm around Leah's waist. "Let us not think of the future for a moment. I know it will be difficult, I know we will argue – bitterly – many times. But the only thing I want right now is to enjoy the company of my stubborn, disobedient, feisty... lovely wife."

"Great, because that wife of yours wants nothing more than to spend an eternity with her beautiful, chaotic, arrogant... wonderful man."

"God."

Leah smiled, closed her eyes, and leaned closer to Loki for another kiss.

"Whatever."


End file.
